Impressions
by NightmareBottle
Summary: Magick doesn't always work the way you expect. Especially, when you aren't quite certain of what it is exactly that you want it to do. Magick definitely does not work as expected if you do not fully grasp the forces you tap into. Thing is, the powers that be have a sense of humor and are apt give you something you didn't think you asked for, as Klarion will find out. Klarionxofc.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This has already been uploaded to my deviant art. As I've got the next chapter in the works and don't think I'll be losing steam this time around I've decided to go ahead and upload it here. R&R Please, if you will._

The full moon was a ghostly sight behind her cloudy veil. She was framed between the bony branches of two trees as she shone her fragile light upon the young woman sitting at the crossroads. The young woman's chest rose and fell with deep breaths as she tried to find the rhythm of the magick that lay dormant within her, around her, and above her. Her dark eyes fluttered open and her gaze turned to the pearl in the heavens for guidance. As she began to reflect upon her conundrum, her eyelids dropped again. Her mind grew dark as her spirit reached out for guidance from a world beyond her conscious understanding.

Elsewhere, in a dimension where magick was much more flamboyant and unabashed, a clearing was lit not by the frigid light of the moon but by the dancing light cast by the unseen inner fire of a chaos practitioner. The world quivered as one reality peeled away from the other and he found himself momentarily thrust into the fabric between worlds, not for the first time. Something was different though, he was drowning in it and he felt himself reaching in all directions for something, anything to hold on to. Just as he finally managed to grab something, he found himself back in his body.

He grimaced. He'd failed to take into account the difference between his actual and physical age. Yes, he was fortunate he hadn't been permanently left without body and anchor. The memory of the experience began to fade and much later when the brats arrived, it was gone.

"Ha! There! See, when the worlds divided, the helmet split too. You're not all here Nabu and you're losing hold on that poor soon-to-be-dead girl," he ends with a laugh and a mocking sing-song, "She gave herself for nothing." As the words left his lips, something prickled at the far edges of his mind, a memory trying to breathe new life, he smothered it.

Everywhere she touched felt like velvet. It was pressing in, trying to snuff her out and make her into more velvet. She was powerless to resist as threads of it dug in where her skin should be. Then, something squeezed all the velvet out and she found dirt beneath her hands. Sharp little rocks dug into her knees. There were voices but she couldn't tell them apart over the loud buzzing in her head. She looked up and made out a dark shape coming towards her through her blurry sight. There was no time to react. The figure grabbed her. Her stomach protested the motion but there was nothing to throw up. Her vision turned red and then black as consciousness gave under the burden of its new reality. Her dreams were plagued by screams.

Klarion dropped the girl on the couch unceremoniously. Teekl, for his part, leapt onto the arm rest and watched the girl with a swaying tail. Klarion eyed his cat for a moment and chalked up the odd behavior to curiosity before examining his new surroundings.

"Don't wake her Teekl," he called over his shoulder as he plucked a photograph from a bookshelf.

The cat meowed his assent and reconsidered the idea of pouncing on her. Deciding it was best not to anger his master after an encounter with Doctor Fate, Teekl sulkily obliged. He settled himself down and glared at the girl, as if she was to blame for his master's mood.

Klarion slipped the picture from the frame and rubbed the corner, examining the face, before it caught fire. The ashes were still drifting around the room when he pulverized the frame and all the others in sight. He didn't need them, he had the faces memorized and those people would never make it home, as people anyways. His magick was already taking care of that. He smirked. Three tiny mice would make their way home where Teekl would make a snack of them.

Teekl turned his head to glare at his master indignantly. Had he not just said not to wake the girl? Said master, though aware of the glare through their psychic connection, appeared oblivious to it and disappeared into the dark hallway after casting a brief glance towards the kitchen. Teekl's glowing eyes stayed focused on his back until he stepped into the first bedroom, breaking the cat's physical line of sight.

If he had to guess, she'd choose the bedroom he'd just stepped into. No doubt she'd want to sleep in the room she believed would facilitate her escape.

"Ylno nepo ot evas reh efil," he said with a grin and a wave of his hand. He wouldn't want to lose his new toy after all.

Not feeling like taking the time to change the entire room with baby magick when he had other things to attend to, he pulled at the very atoms of the objects in the room. The change was subtle but sufficient to hide the personality the room had been given by its previous owners. He reduced the pictures he could see to ashes.

On the dresser, he found a journal. He leafed through the turmoil of a teenage girl before making the ink pour out of the pages and into a bottle he produced for the purpose. You never knew when bottled teen angst could come in handy.

He walked back into the hallway and waved the doors to the other two bedrooms closed. With a shudder, they both locked magically. He left the door to the bathroom unlocked at the thought of the mess he might return to find. The smell was bad enough after he'd disposed of someone, he couldn't bear the odor without the pleasure of someone's ill-fated demise.

"Stay here Teekl. I need to keep an eye on her," Klarion said as he walked past the cat and to the door.

The dim dusty light of the hallway was glaring compared to the cool darkness of the apartment and Klarion made a sour face, skin pulling tight against bone, as he closed and locked the door behind him.

As an afterthought he muttered under his breath, "Enon lliw retne enon lliw evael tsel I lliw ti os."

"What was that son?" an elderly man asked as he turned the lock to his apartment. He slipped the key out of the lock and looked at the witch boy up and down. "Isn't miss Hellene a little young to be havin' a boyfriend? Do her folks know about ya? You haven't met them have ya?"

"No, not any of them," Klarion said while locking his dark eyes to the man's faded blue ones, "and neither have you!"

The man nodded slowly as his key dropped to the floor. Klarion had a hard time containing his disgust, not that he was really trying, as saw drool trail down the man's chin in his peripheral vision.

"Oh, once your brain comes back, be sure to pass on the message to everyone you encounter," he said while walking past, not breaking eye-contact.

The man's eyes glowed red for a moment and the next moment old man Jerry found himself standing in the empty hallway, out of breath, with the prickly feeling that he'd just lost something. He spotted the key on the ground and his heartbeat slowed. That was it, he didn't lose it after all. He bent down to pick up his key and turned towards his door.

"That's not right. I was going somewhere," he said to himself as he changed direction, heading towards the stairs.

The stairwell was unusually dark, the only other light filtered in from the bottom of the stairs where Klarion's silhouette could be seen. The man crossed himself, thinking he'd seen the devil, and decided to try the other staircase.

Klarion couldn't help an amused scoff as the man fled back into the yellow light of the hallway above. The light was abruptly cut off as the upstairs door swung shut. For a brief moment, the witch imagined that the darkness was pressing in on him, stealing his breath. He pressed back with his magick only to feel it slide through the air having met no resistance. The corners of his mouth twitched, as if unsure of what expression to make before settling on anger. Uncertainty was not an emotion befitting a Lord of Chaos.

He must have been fighting specters in the stairwell longer than he thought because the old man had made it down the stairs. He watched the old man wave at the dark-skinned woman behind the counter. Despite his nasty experience earlier, he slipped back into the darkness of the stairwell to observe his handiwork.

"Going out so late Jerry?" the middle-aged woman asked.

"Yes, gonna check on the grandkids. Strange night, ya know?" he replied.

"My kids are off in college. I was so relieved that they didn't go anywhere," she told him.

"Good thing no kids were staying in this building," he said with a small laugh, "Can ya imagine what all that excitement would have done to my old bones?"

"No kids?" the woman asked with a puzzled look.

She froze for a second, eyes briefly flashing red, before she smiled and said, "Well, we've got new tenants for 2B and they're young but not that young. Oh, hey Jerry, could you throw these out for me? These letters keep coming for 2B but the names don't match any of the previous tenants."

"Sure," he said as he took the envelopes from her before walking towards the door.

"Have a nice night Glenda!" he called over his shoulder as he stepped into the street.

She was waving goodbye to Jerry when Klarion walked back into the room. Her shriek as turned around was sharp enough to make him glad he'd left Teekl upstairs. He winced at the sound and shot the woman a nasty glare. Her voice died away to a whisper before her chest heaved with the force of a cough.

"Sorry. You startled me," she said, voice still raspy from the cough.

He was unsatisfied with the apology and was very tempted to turn her into something Teekl would find snack-sized. Fortunately for her, she was the best way to spread the memory-loss he'd started upstairs. They'd pick up their mail and forget a neighbor. He grinned at the thought and like Jerry before him, walked into the night.

Long after Klarion had left the building, the chill inspired by his smile clung to Glenda. She decided she'd have to talk to her boss about who exactly he was renting out apartments to. Next, they'd be having The Joker as a tenant.

The night air brushed against his skin. Normally, he'd find the sensation pleasant but on that night his emotions were more conflicted than usual and unpleasantly so. He should be feeling elated at the mischief he caused, annoyed at having his fun cut short by Doctor Fate, and devilishly pleased at having helped pull the wool over the eyes of the entire world. Instead of being a pleasant brew, as it should have been, it was embittered by unanswered questions and the frustration that came with them.

He was on his eight or so, he wasn't really counting, looter turned slug when he felt Teekl's presence strongly in his mind. It seemed the girl was waking up and he wasn't feeling much better. If only there'd been some decent people out and about. For the moment, he now felt too much like one of the no-fun good guys for his liking. He supposed it was just as well for he had lost track of time and his colleagues would be less than thrilled if he was late. He found a suitable dark alley and summoned himself a portal. In a flash of red, he found himself outside of the apartment door.

Glass shattered on the floor followed by a thud next to him. Klarion raised an eyebrow at the woman passed out on the floor before bending down to pick up a square of some sort of baked good. He took a bite and quickly spat it out.

"Gah, looked like strawberry," he whined before wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

He waited for the taste to subside before opening the door and stepping into the darkness of the apartment. He almost hesitated at the memory of the experience in the stairwell but carried on.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: As always, posted to my deviant art first. Hope you enjoy and remember to R&R_

She came awake with a gasp and an awful feeling of not being able to get enough air into her lungs. Her breathing was fine but the feeling did not disappear. She became aware of a weight on her chest. Her vision went in and out of focus and it took her a while to eventually make a cat out of the bright orange blur. Her hand rose weakly, trying to push the cat off of her.

Teekl only made himself comfortable between her breasts and tugged on the psychic link with his master, sending the image of the waking girl. Much to his displeasure, the girl forced herself to sit up and he slipped down her shirt. He snarled at her, not that she could see it.

Her eyelids felt as if they were made of some stiff heavy metal in need of a good oiling and her head didn't feel much better. She left them drift close as she fought to control the nausea rising in response to her movement. She opened them in a rush when she found that she had briefly succumbed to the pull of sleep. Her body trembled with weakness but the weight of the cat bothered her after a while and she pushed the thing roughly off the couch.

Teekl's fur stood on end. His claws dug into the carpeting. Feline lips were twisted to bare teeth as a low hiss passed through them. This, was how Klarion found Teekl moments later when he got the door open and walked into the room. He shot his familiar the nastiest glare before blasting the cat across the room. Teekl turned and hissed at his master before fleeing into the kitchen.

Fortunately for Klarion's plans, the girl's gaze was focused on his dark silhouette and she couldn't make out anything she didn't look at directly for the moment. He realized his near-slip and shot another glare in the cat's direction. He was tempted to lean against the doorway until she said something but remembering the woman outside the door, stepped fully into the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

He gave her a winning grin and began walking towards her as he said, "Glad to see you're awake m'dear. I have to leave soon but you should rest. You've had quite a nasty fall. Hit your head I'm afraid."

She stiffened as he got closer. If he picked up on it, he gave no indication other than stopping and walking around the couch towards the kitchen beyond. She followed him with her eyes until he passed through the threshold and into another room. Her muscles relaxed and she settled back down on the couch. She was more comfortable knowing she was alone in the living room but she still strained her hearing in case he or the cat decided to sneak up on her.

Klarion held back a groan as he entered the kitchen. The fridge was practically covered with pictures of the family. Teekl grinned down at him mockingly from atop the appliance and the witch boy made a sour face at him. He began tearing them down until he realized he needed a way to dispose of them. The trash can? She could look through it. Out the window? He didn't feel like redoing the wards on it. He stopped thinking about it and just lit them on fire like the rest.

"What was that," the girl's voice called from the other room.

He scrambled for an answer while looking around the kitchen for an excuse. On the table there was a scented candle. He smirked to himself as he snapped his fingers and a flame rushed to life on the wick.

"Ah, just lighting a candle. The kitchen light is out," he called back, almost laughing at his deception.

The girl must have been satisfied by the answer because she didn't reply. Klarion pulled Teekl off the fridge and stroked him for a moment before turning to walk back into the other room.

"Meow?" Teekl questioned.

The witchboy stopped for a moment, a thoughtful frown crossing his face.

"Oh!" he said and squeezed the cat distractedly before continuing, "You're quite right my dear Teekl."

He focused his sight on the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling of the room. After a moment, a faint popping sound came from within it and a lone wisp of smoke trailed out of its base. He listened for a moment for any signs that the girl had heard him before he remembered that her hearing was human and dull.

"I do apologize for having to leave you alone after the injury you've had but I really must take Teekl here to the vet," he said as he stepped into the room.

Halfway across the room, he stopped and turned his head to look at her.

"How rude of me, leaving without telling you my name. I'm Klarion, and you are?" he said.

She blinked, confused at how long it took her to bring up the information. She frowned and bit her lip. Suddenly, she smiled as her own name bubbled up from the murky depths of her turbulent mind.

"Madison," she said.

"Nice to meet you Madison," he said with a smile and made his way to the door.

Klarion was out the door and across the hall, having learned his lesson about teleporting in well-lit areas with the lady still passed out on the floor, when Madison began to wonder what sort of vet was open for visits at such an odd hour. She frowned at the door. Something wasn't right about that guy at all. Unfortunately, she was too tired at the time to investigate further and fell into a more restful sleep than she'd had earlier.

Sometime later, hunger pangs dragged her out of the embrace of sleep. She pouted, certain that she was being deprived of some wonderful dream before she remembered where she was. She sat up quicker than she thought she'd be able to and looked around frantically. She was alone. If the guy and his cat had returned, they were incredibly silent. She heard nothing but the sound of distant sirens.

It was still dark but she sensed that dawn was not very far away. She brushed away the urge to remember. She had bigger problems. Nothing hurt. There were no bruises, no throbbing, no aches, and her head was remarkably clear. In fact, she felt incredibly well aside from the clawing hunger in her belly. She hadn't fallen. He had lied to her.

She questioned her new theory when she got up and was hit by a wave of dizziness. Perhaps, she had merely passed out and he only thought she fell. She wasn't convinced by the thought and made her way into the candle-lit room as she was not brave enough to start her search in the dark hallway. Besides, she reasoned, the room seemed the most logical place to put a kitchen.

It began to feel like going into the lit room was a mistake. From within the flickering light, the darkness in the other room made her skin crawl. Just looking at her own shadow made her shudder unpleasantly. Fear struck with a cold grace at her heart. Every sound sent shocks up her spine.

She shook her head. Her fear was misplaced and she knew it. Now that she could see, she noticed tiny cuts on the palms of her hands. She may have fallen, she acknowledged, but if she'd caught herself would she have hit her head hard enough to knock herself out? It didn't matter. She wouldn't stay. She'd be gone by the time he got back from the vet or wherever he had really gone.

Or at least that's what she thought before trying the door in the room she'd woken in. Still, since the handle had turned she convinced herself that it was only stuck. The window in the kitchen soon proved her wrong.

She eyed the dark hallway warily from the kitchen doorway. There was no reason to be afraid of the dark. Yet, some dark memory stroked at the edges of her consciousness. It whispered promises that deadly things would find her there, crush her, steal her breath. She brushed the feeling away with a frown and walked into the hall.

The decided she'd start at the end of the hall and work her way back towards the kitchen. That way there was less of chance she'd be caught in one of the rooms when he came back. Assuming of course, that he wouldn't walk in through the door in the next few minutes.

The door at the end of the hall turned out to be the bathroom. A street light blazed bright beyond the opaque window in the shower, flooding the room with dim amber light. It was narrow and would definitely be difficult but she thought that she could fit through it if she had to. Unfortunately, the window, like the one in the kitchen, wouldn't budge.

"Who the fuck locks a window that small?" she yelled as she slammed her hand against the tile.

She'd been kidnapped. He'd kidnapped her. It was hard not to panic. Even if she got out she didn't actually remember any phone numbers to call and she didn't have money anyway. She could go to the police. And tell them what? She was still hungry to boot.

Her stomach led her back to the kitchen. She would have checked the other rooms but having convinced herself she was the next victim of some deranged serial killer, she was afraid of what she would find. The darkness suddenly seemed a whole lot more friendly now that it possibly kept her from seeing severed limbs. Morbid humor was not a reaction she wanted to be having in that situation but it was either that or scream and she wasn't sure he wasn't standing outside the door or watching her.

The stark white light of the fridge mingled with the more sensuous light of the candle. She paused for a moment at the sudden realization that she really liked the honey-hued glow of the candle. Her newfound love of the candle was short lived as she noticed that the fridge was empty of any actual food. Now, the apple-cinnamon scent of the thing seemed to exist solely to mock her.

Swiftly, she walked across the warm linoleum and snatched the candle off the table. Fortunately, it was rather thick and the glass was not hot enough to burn. Later, she would rationalize that low blood sugar and the extreme stress of being held against their will was enough to drive anyone insane but for the moment, she flung the thing at the kitchen window. Abruptly, the room was swallowed by the heavy drape of darkness.

"Do you often try to set yourself on fire?" a voice drawled from somewhere behind her.

Madison felt her entire body stiffen. She hadn't heard the door open. She was distracted and emotional but she would have heard that door open from where she was. Maybe he'd been there the whole time. Why hadn't he made his presence known sooner? Why do serial killers do anything? She didn't like where that train of thought was going.

Light returned to the room. Had he lit another candle? No, there in front of her, as if she had hurled it at the window, the apple scented monstrosity burned merrily. Her heart jumped into her throat. She'd flung that candle, seen the shards fly through the air before the light had abruptly died.

"Boo," he whispered right next to her ear.

For the second time that night, or rather for the first time that morning, Madison passed out.

"Why do they always do that?" Klarion asked, "It's like they've never seen magick before."

Teekl wondered whether his master was serious in his query or if he was just mocking the humans he encountered. He didn't see the point of doing the latter when the girl wasn't conscious to hear it and he refused to consider the former. There was simply no way his master was that stupid. Fortunately for Teekl, his master was too preoccupied to notice the cat's train of thought.

"Ah, this is going to be so much FUN Teekl," he said giddily while bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Teekl meowed in response.

"Of course I still want to know how she piggybacked on my ritual but that doesn't mean I can't have fun with it!" he dismissed the cat's concerns.

The girl began to shrink and was soon enveloped in a red bubble that hovered over to where Klarion was. When the orb got too near for comfort, Teekl leapt to the floor and stared at it. Ignoring the cat, Klarion moved towards the bedroom he'd picked out for his _guest_.

"When she wakes, Teekl, I get to convince her that yesterday was all in her head. That's going to be fun. It's going to be even more fun somewhere down the road when I do magick in her presence again!" he said as the covers pulled themselves over the girl.

Klarion walked further into the room and leaned against the window. The sky was beginning to turn grey as the sun rose behind the cloud cover. He liked storms. Raindrops began to hit the window, first a few and then a multitude in a disharmony of sound.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: As always, already on my DA account. Thank you for sticking with me this long, please R&R, your encouragement and feedback is worth gold to me. Hope to see you around for the next update._

It hadn't been very long before he had gotten bored of watching her sleep. Sleeping people were boring people. It hadn't occurred to him to alter her dreams or perhaps he wouldn't have found himself leafing through his vast collection of magick books elsewhere in the city. As fun as his new toy was to play with, he wanted answers quickly.

Rain, even in that distant part of the city, battered the frosted glass of the tall windows. Lightning cast stark fleet dark shadows throughout the library. The figure leaning over a table continued to trace his finger along the arcane symbols charred onto the page. The storm was nothing compared to the red turmoil that constantly shuddered through his aura.

His jaw tightened as he grit his teeth. He was tired of reading, tired of forcing open the stiff spines of books that had been wedged in those shelves longer than he had been a Lord of Chaos. Those books had long memories, remembered what Klarion had done to their masters of old, and were resentful to have to share their knowledge with him. If it was within his power to do so, he'd relish in their destruction but the books were more grounded in that world than he was and he couldn't risk losing his anchor.

He slammed the book shut. He was getting nowhere and losing patient fast. He leant back against the table and watched the lightning impress knobby shadow branches into the opaque glass. Somewhere above, Teekl walked along the smooth wood of the shelves, chasing shadows with his eyes. Klarion followed the sleek orange movements of his familiar for a long moment, lost in thought.

"Come, Teekl. We're done here," he called over his shoulder as he began to weave through the maze of shelves towards a dark archway.

Despite the rain, he remained dry as he walked along the city streets. Teekl was not so lucky and shot a glare at his master, wishing the witch would just teleport them home or back to where the girl was. Klarion ignored his familiar; he was in no hurry to get back to the girl. He was unused to problems that weren't resolved with a burst of Chaos. Chaos, he certainly had more than he'd bargained for at the moment.

A streetlight exploded above him. He kept walking. Teekl shot ahead to avoid the falling shards of glass. The cat came to a stop and turned, fur standing on end, to hiss at his master. Klarion just walked past him without so much as a glance. The expression on his face would have sent even the most hardened no-good criminals into the shadows of the alleys as he passed, had they been foolish enough to brave such a storm.

Too soon, he found himself back near the apartment where he had the girl. The storm had mellowed out some. Lighting no longer streaked across the sky like cracks in the fragile shell of the world. The rain, however, continued to fall so hard and fast that he couldn't see more than a couple of feet. He could hear nothing save the rain drops falling against the pavement; an audience that couldn't clap in sync. Between the violent torrent of rain and the electricity in the air, it was even interfering with his magickal sense.

He turned into the alley. Teekl, invigorated by the thought of being inside and dry, ran ahead of him again and leapt up to the fire escape from the top of a nearby dumpster. Klarion's lips curled downwards in disgust, Teekl would need a bath. He followed the cat up but didn't go near the dumpster.

The rusty metal of the railing was rough on his hands. He found that he rather enjoyed the texture. The idea that metal, a sturdy and trustworthy material, could be broken down by wind, rain, and the chain reactions they triggered was an appealing one. He watched the girl through the glass, rivulets of water interfering with his sight of her. Like the metal beneath his hands, eventually, entropy would consume her. All that would be left of her would be the miniscule ripples she had caused in that world and the one she came from. Even those would be swallowed by bigger ripples. If he wasn't fast enough, his answers would go with her; they'd be devoured by the nature of the world, his nature.

"I just don't know Teekl, she hasn't even tried any baby magick," he mused to the cat shivering beneath the stairs that led up to the next level.

Inside the room, the girl tossed and turned. Her heartbeat sped. Her lips parted in gasps and groans. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the chilly temperature of the room. Her hands grasped at the covers, clawed at monsters that weren't there. Klarion smiled, his previous mood dissipating like morning fog under the glare of the sun.

"Even now, she senses us but thinks that we are only in her dreams," he told the cat who jumped as another drop fell through the holes in the step.

Teekl glared at his master. He felt that the conversation was very much one-sided and that the human could just as easily be talking to the bricks. His glare intensified and he began to wish that his master a weakness besides himself. Someone had to pay for the misery of the long night he'd had. His iridescent orbs turned toward the window to look into the room. Yes, someone most definitely had to pay for the ill treatment he was receiving and who better to pay than the true cause of it? It wasn't his master's fault the girl had interfered with the ritual. The cat grinned.

By the time Madison woke up, the rain was barely more than a mist catching the dying rays of the sun. From the bed she stared out the window for a long moment, fragments of her dreams coming back to her. A shiver ran down her spine and prickled at its base. There was nothing out there but wet metal and the brick of the building next door.

She got out of bed, cast a wary glance towards the door, and walked as quietly as she could toward the window. Her hands pressed against the glass as she pushed it up. It didn't move. The wooden frame didn't even creak under the strain. It wasn't locked she could see that. She lowered her hands to rest on the sill only to pull them away sharply. Her hands were wet. Another shudder came, this time trailing down her spine with a slow chill.

Her hands rubbed against the rough denim of the jeans as she dried them. She stepped back, away from the window at a scratching sound coming from the other side of the bedroom door. Her heart sped before she remembered the cat. She sped across the room and locked the door before she had time to think about what she was doing.

Tears streamed down her face as the night before came back to her. Where was she? How did she get here? What did he want with her? She dug her fingers into the carpet painfully as she tried to stop her body from shaking. There was a knock on the door.

She didn't know how, but she could sense him leaning against the door. Every muscle in her body stiffened as she listened for his breath. There was nothing but silence yet the feeling didn't go away. Had she imagined the knock? She wiped away the tears with her arm then stood. Fear froze her, she could only stare at the worn knob on the door. It moved slightly as Klarion tried the door.

Before he could unlock it, she pulled it open. He took a step forward to steady himself and grinned at her. For the first time, she got a good look at his hair. It seemed to defy gravity and she didn't think he was the type for gel or hairspray. She didn't smile back. Small droplets of sweat beaded on the back of her neck like the cold points of needles.

" I see that you're up and lucid," Klarion drawled.

She didn't like his voice. Her skin wanted to crawl at the sound but she forced a shaky smile through her fear. She was too focused on his voice to notice the way the corner of his mouth tugged upward and the narrowing of his eyes.

"How much do you remember?" his voice managed to somehow turn the question into a taunt.

"I," she paused trying to gather her thoughts, " I remember last night and... Everything's just so foggy. I remember dirt beneath my hands." She grabbed her head as it began to throb.

"That's to be expected," he said with a pout, "They had you on quite the drug cocktail," he finished with a laugh.

Her confusion showed on her face and he tried to keep his mouth from twisting upwards in a wicked grin. It flickered for a moment as he watched her expression turn to anger but otherwise, he held it steady.

"Yesterday, you said that I hit my head," her voice was a soft whisper.

"I thought you were too out of it to remember," he said with a half-shrug.

She wasn't quite pacified by his explanation but she pursed her lips and let it go for the moment. Her eyes focused on his darker ones in a glare laced with her suspicions and his darkened under the scrutiny.

"You should have some breakfast," he said, mildly irritated by her unwavering suspicion of him. Yes, it was warranted, but he liked to think of himself as disarmingly charming.

He extended his hand towards the hallway. Madison looked at the hand, then at him, before walking into the hallway ahead of him. Now that her head had cleared some, she reasoned that he'd had plenty of opportunity to kill her if that was his aim. She could see that she was in no mortal peril, for the time being.

She made her way to where she remembered the kitchen to be. Her chest lurched as he brushed past her into the kitchen. She had been so focused on making sense of the night before that she had neither heard nor felt him. Light flowed into the room from a streetlight. It was something that she hadn't noticed the night before because of the candle. Had there been a candle? Yes, there it was, burned out on the kitchen table. Whole and showing no signs that it's shards had ever glittered on the linoleum.

The white light that flooded the room as the fridge door swung open interrupted her thoughts and made her keenly aware of the fact that she'd been standing in the doorway staring like a mindless dolt at the window for longer than she'd care to admit. Stupid, she was lucky he didn't seem to be inclined to physically harm her.

Even so, she stayed by the door and watched him set a carton of milk on the table. Then, she watched him open every cabinet. She couldn't help but be confused. How long had they been here? Long enough to have full cabinets but not long enough to know where everything was? That didn't make sense. Her lips pulled into a tighter frown only to relax as she became aware that she was frowning.

"Here you go," he said as he filled a thick glass with milk.

She walked up to the table. Somewhere, he'd found a box of cookies. She didn't touch any of it. Her stomach was queasy. She must have made a face at the thought because his voice jarred her out of her thoughts again.

"It isn't poisoned," he snapped and took a gulp of milk.

"I didn't say it was," she said, startled.

He gave her a dark look that she couldn't decipher before beginning to walk across the room.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked when he was halfway across the room.

He didn't stop or give any indication that he had heard her as he disappeared into the other room and possibly into the hall. She stared at the spot where he had vanished for a long moment, trying to gauge him. Eventually, she acknowledge that she didn't know enough about him to know if he had poisoned the food or not. She hadn't really thought about it until he brought it up. She figured the milk at least was safe and upon inspection found the cookies to be sealed . Her mind made up, she shoved a cookie into her mouth and took a long drink of milk to wash it down.


	4. Chapter 4

_AlN: As usual, can be found on my devart account first. Please remember to R&R, your feedback matters. :D_

She didn't know if she should believe him about the drugs. He had lied to her before but at the same time she didn't have another explanation for what she had seen the night before. She picked up the candle, examining it under the orange glow of the light coming in from the street. The surface of the glass was smooth, free of cracks or other imperfections. She put it down. There was nothing she could learn from it.

The milk carton was empty, or near enough. She'd poured herself a second glass after the first. The cookies made her mouth feel parched every time she ate one and the milk supply dwindled much faster than the cookies. She pushed the package across the worn wood of the table; she was out of milk.

Finding that she was still tired, she made her way back to the bedroom that she had woken in. For the first time, she began to wonder what had happened to her shoes but found that her mind had begun to once more fill with fog. She navigated the dark hallway with relative ease but when she stepped into the room, she tripped over something soft and warm.

Her chin hit the carpet hard. As she turned to try to see what she had tripped over, she gave a brief thankful thought that she had not bitten her tongue at least. Nothing moved in the room or the hallway she had just vacated that she could tell. She closed the door as she got up, keeping her eyes on the ground. She was certain that it must have been the cat. That part, at least, she knew was real now.

She felt for the lock in the dark. The sense of comfort that came with the act was small but reassuring. A little illusion of safety that she could hold on to as she crawled into a foreign bed. It was perhaps, the only thing that allowed her to fall asleep that night.

Meanwhile, in another bedroom, Klarion was unusually somber as he indulged in his own dark thoughts. The girl posed a problem of the sort he wasn't used to resolving. If he killed her, he would never find the flaw in his own spellwork. If he tried to somehow force the information out of her when she herself could make no sense of her own origins, her mind was likely to break under the strain thereby destroying any chance he head of acquiring the information. He'd have to do it the slow way. He really hated the slow way. That was a lie, he liked the slow way when the prize was big enough. He just didn't like it when it was his only option.

He glared at the pictures of the previously happy family on the dresser. The glass cracked on the picture of the daughter. He flicked his wrist and the photo burst from the frame, speeding towards him, before gently falling into his open palm. He looked at the girl with half-hearted interest. Her pale skin was nothing like the golden hue of the girl sleeping down the hall. How he longed to give the latter the same fate. He crushed the picture in his hand, tossing the ball into a plastic wastebasket next to a cheap desk.

Not knowing things was really starting to become a thorn in his side. He couldn't kill the girl because he didn't know how she did it. He didn't know how she did it because he didn't know how to successfully extract the information. He didn't know how to extract it because he didn't know her. If he spent too much time around her, she'd eventually unravel his lies. That left- Teekl.

A smug smirk crossed his face at the solution. It was perfect! What non-magickally inclined would suspect that a cat was more than a cat. He frowned. He wasn't quite sure she wasn't magickally inclined yet. He shrugged. Her aura was so muddled that it was quite possible she'd forgotten she could do magick. He was surprised she could remember her name.

Before dawn even began to cast the first dim rays of grey. Klarion was pacing the apartment, itching for the sky to lighten. It didn't quite occur to him, as disconnected as he was with the issues of those whose lives flickered by, that she wouldn't wake with the sun.

When she finally woke up and made her way to the living area, she found Klarion with his head hanging off the couch. He was staring upside down at the black screen of the TV. She couldn't help herself, the sight was disarming. Somehow, she doubted he knew that. If he did, he must have had one hell of a headache from waiting for her to get up.

Klarion was brought back to the apartment by the sound of static filling the room. He blinked a few times until the fuzzy grey of the TV screen came into focus. He tried not to stiffen at the realization of how close she'd come to him without him being aware of it. How was she hiding herself from his senses? The thought that she just might be so harmless that he automatically shoved her in the same category with the furniture never formed.

Whatever ground he had accidentally gained earlier, he lost with the glare he wasn't aware of giving her. Instantly, she remembered her distrust of him and her inability to leave the apartment. She crossed her arms, instinctively trying to put something between them. His face relaxed as she did so. He wasn't so out of touch that he couldn't read body language. It was quite essential in evaluating opponents.

"Are you feeling any better?" he said softly, trying to undo the damage. The words and tone felt foreign and clumsy as he said them.

"Yes," she said while shaking her head 'no'. He wasn't sure which to believe.

A moment of heavy silence followed. His mind was racing, trying to figure out what he could say to get the most information from her. She was trying to sort out if she could really say she was feeling better when she still wasn't sure exactly where she'd been or how she got there.

"No," she said after a moment.

"What?" he asked, not having expected her to speak.

"I'm not feeling better," she clarified.

"Oh," he said, thought coming to a dead stop.

She rubbed her hand against her arm uncomfortably before turning around slowly and walking to the kitchen. He watched her go, irritated at himself for the pointless conversation that had just occurred. He was unused to missing opportunities and he was finding himself lacking in patience when it came to her. What could he do until she remembered anything anyways? His frown softened as his irritation slipped into the anonymity of his turbulent emotional brew.

"Hey, how come you don't have any cat food?" she called from the kitchen, "and where's your cat?"

"In the basement hunting rats," he replied flatly. As an afterthought he tacked on a lively, " no doubt!" The other question he ignored. She wouldn't catch him lying if he didn't answer.

In the kitchen, she paused what she was doing and turned her head to look in his direction at his tone. She shrugged to herself. Her speech patterns didn't tell her anything his moodiness didn't. The guy was nuttier than a Reese's Cup. The image was stark against her fuzzy thoughts. She froze. The little red packet didn't waver in her mind; the scent of it invaded her senses. Great, she now remembered a totally useless piece of information. She pursed her lips.

She jumped and had to hold on to the cabinet door to prevent herself from falling when the orange terror jumped out of one of the lower cabinets. She was certain the damned thing had tripped her the night before. People could say what they wanted about animals being stupid but she'd had enough encounters clever ones to know better. She frowned. Had she? Her memories were silent on the matter.

Her fingers closed around the porcelain of a bowl and she sighed in relief. Hopefully, there'd be something in the fridge that she could put in it. As she moved to get down from the counter, her eyes fell on the sink. It was empty and completely dry. Had he eaten? Did she care? She decided that she didn't and hopped off the counter.

She found nothing remotely appetizing in the fridge but the freezer supplied a bucket of ice-cream. Ugh, now she'd have to find the scoop. She looked at the long line of drawers and sighed.

It was the fourth drawer she had slammed closed in anger when she noticed that she was no longer alone. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He walked up to a drawer she'd been through before and pulled out the scoop, holding it out for her. She took it, her hand brushing against his as she did so. How had he known what she was looking for? Had she said it out loud? Maybe. She wasn't convinced.

As she finished scooping the ice-cream into her bowl, she caught him giving his hand a dirty look. She made a sour expression that she managed to smooth blank just as he looked up. Something dark rumbled in his eyes and she looked away. Her fingers fumbled to open the drawer she remembered seeing the spoons in. When she looked up, he was gone.

The ice-cream tasted like it had been in the freezer too long. After all the trouble she went through to get the stuff into her plate, she forced herself to down another bite. A few bites in, some of the stuff in the fridge was starting to look more and more appetizing. At least, the foul after-taste kept her from thinking about her predicament too long. Kept her from thinking about all the odd things that didn't add up.

She cast her gaze on the kitchen window. When he left the apartment, and he would have to eventually to buy food, she would check the windows again. She deposited another spoonful into her mouth. So much for the taste being a distraction. However, her thoughts were focused on finding a way out or at the very least setting the stage for an escape. Yes, she had a plan. Escape, whatever it took. A soft smile ghosted over her face.

There was a sense of relief as she washed the rest of the bowl's contents down the sink. The creamy white poison turned a translucent grey as it merged with the flow of water. When the water ran clear, she put the bowl on the dry side of the double sink. There was no soap. She dried her hands against her jeans, grimacing as she became aware of how long she'd been wearing them. There was no dish towel either.

With one last look towards the window, she walked out of the kitchen. Her jeans had reminded her that she was in need of a shower. As far as she could tell, she wasn't giving off a smell but that was a small comfort against the idea of being filthy.

In the hallway, her suspicions that the cat had tripped her were confirmed as the titian little beast tried it again. Fortunately, the walls were so close together she had no trouble catching herself. She looked around to glare at the thing but it seemed to share its masters gift of banishing, or perhaps it was the other way around. Some distant part of her mind rustled at the thought but grew silent without further fanfare.

Cautiously, she made her way to the end of the hall and slipped into the bathroom as quickly as she could without tripping over her feet. She felt the door click into place against her back and fumbled to get it locked. The room was softly lit, calm, clean, and most importantly free of homicidal orange cats.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: As always, on Deviant Art first. Please Rate(on any scale you want) and Review. Remember that others sometimes decide what to read based on what you write about it. ^-^_

It took her a frustratingly long time to get the right temperature. It was bad enough that she didn't know the hot handle from the cold one but it seemed that the building didn't have a boiler that could adequately meet its needs. She shook. After everything that happened, the thing that made her want to cry turned out to be the stupid plumbing. Two stray tears trailed down her face. She rubbed them away before anyone could see. There was no one to see. She felt foolish.

Her clothes were a rumpled pile on the floor before long and she grinned when the first wave of droplets made contact with her skin. They reminded her of a dream she had but she couldn't recall what it was. It left her with a subtle dark emotion that she could neither name nor shake. It stuck with her even as the water eased away the tension in her limbs.

By the time she got around to investigating the bottles to wash herself with, the window, mirror, and tile were clouded over with impossibly small droplets. When she finally reached for one of the towels on the shelves above the toilet, the droplets on the mirror had become heavy enough to slither down the glass.

She got out and looked down at her clothes distastefully. Some of them at least had to go back on. There was no way she was going to walk around naked. She had no idea what the guy somewhere on the other side of the door wanted. How did she know he wasn't one thought away from raping her? That thought decided it. She put her top and pants back on, throwing her undergarments in the sink.

Once the water ran so hot that she could barely tolerate it, she got to washing them with the liquid handsoap. As she hung them next to hand towels behind her, she thanked the fact that she hadn't worn granny panties. She laughed. Of all the things to think of in her situation. A shadow crossed under the door and she froze. Were her fears warranted? Suddenly, she hated leaving her under things just hanging there but she didn't exactly want to walk down the hall with them either. She left them there.

As she walked towards the living room, intending to turn on the TV to figure out where she was. She heard the apartment door open and someone step inside. She stopped, listening. The thought occurred to her that she and her captor could be squatters. It could be help. It could be danger.

Klarion walked past the hallway and into the kitchen with two brown bags. For a second, she thought that one of the bags was floating, only just touching. She practically ran to see if she could catch a glimpse. The bags were already on the table. He turned to look at her.

"Did you get more ice-cream?" the words left her mouth reflexively.

"Yes," he said with a pout, " If I share will you stop acting like I'm about to axe murder you?" _Or turn you into a rat_, he added mentally.

She was caught off guard by the question. She hadn't realized that her body language had been that obvious. That would have to get fixed. If he knew she distrusted him, he would in turn be wary and less likely to make mistakes. She put a smile on her face, relaxed her shoulders, and crinkled her eyes before letting laughter bubble up. It wasn't that she found his question funny, although she hoped he believed that she did, but rather that she thought that was the best way to disarm him.

He gave her a cold calculating look, suspicious of her reaction but let it go. He guessed that if the laughter wasn't genuine, it was at worst a result of or tainted by the stress she was in. He gave her a closed smile and waved a hand at the bags.

"Care to help?" he asked.

She nodded and walked over to the table to lend a hand. It was pleasing to her to find that the everyday activity brought her a small sense of normalcy and she didn't have to struggle to force her body language to stay relaxed. She wasn't sure she could have kept her shoulders from tensing up at his proximity otherwise. She found that she was enjoying herself. She could pretend that she wasn't there against her will. No past. No future. Just putting the groceries away. Her soul begrudged the moment when the white of the fridge door obscured the last item.

It happened suddenly. The feeling began to fade but just as she began to think that it would last her through the conversation that had to follow, the floodgates of the past few days burst open. Her body shook subtly and she fought to keep the tears from forming. She placed her hand on the fridge and used it to hold her up, hold her together. She took a gasp of a breath and forced air to keep moving. She was filled for such an intense longing for a home she couldn't recall.

He grimaced as he began to lose patience. Some hidden part of his mind whispered that he normally loved to see his enemies brought down to that level. He pushed the thought away. He was thrilled to be able to wear done his enemies but that wasn't it. He hadn't done that. For the most part, she'd done it to herself and that was somehow less satisfying. It was somewhat revolting to watch and he couldn't have kept the expression off of his face had he wanted to.

She couldn't look at him. She didn't want to see judgment on his face or, worse, satisfaction. For the first time, she saw her own weakness. It must have been the first time. Laughter bubbled up to her mouth, where she tried to swallow it back and choked on it. She coughed. How confusing, to remember nothing and know when something was new.

"Are you this weak?" he spat.

Inwardly, she agreed. She said nothing. How inhuman. How utterly cold. She had to get away from that monster, whatever it took. Her brow set into a scowl. The desire to escape feuded with the desire to cry and the desire to tear him apart. Her heart beat against her ribcage painfully. Her blood roared in her ears. Her vision threatened to go dark. It flickered menacingly and she leant further against the appliance to stay standing.

"Feeble worm. If there is a drop of power in you, it's wasted." he said with a sneer.

Still, she didn't look up. Slowly her heartbeat slowed and she could hear again. Her own breathing rasped against her eardrums and she flinched at the sound. For the sake of her ears, she made an effort to smooth her breathing. In another part of the room, a drop of water fell from the faucet and plopped against the metal of the sink. The sound jarred her to full awareness. Her head jolted upwards, expression challenging. He was gone again. She was really starting to hate that.

When she finally walked out of the kitchen, she was greeted by the sight of Klarion flipping through the channels on the television. She stood in the doorway, unsure of how to proceed. He turned to look at her and straightened up, making room on the couch, before turning back to the fleeting images on the screen. Was that an invitation? What would he do if she went straight to her room? What would she do in her room anyways? Plus, he might watch the news. Meekly, she made her way around to the front of the couch.

He watched her from the corner of his eye. She was purposely not looking at him, her face forcibly set in the direction of the screen. She was pressed, painfully he was sure, into the arm-rest. He was starting to feel mildly insulted by her behavior. He'd been dreadfully pleasant to her. It was actually starting to make him feel a little sick but he had to know what had gone wrong. She was his only way to do that and she was being annoyingly useless at that.

On his lap, Teekl purred and rubbed his face against Klarion's chest. The witch, absentmindedly stroked the cat's back as he continued to flip channels and watch the girl. He raised an eyebrow when the girl turned briefly to give his familiar a nasty glare. He pulled his cat into a one-armed hug and narrowed his eyes on the girl.

"What have you done to Teekl," he demanded, leveling the full strength of his gaze on her.

"Me? I haven't done anything," she hissed, meeting his gaze head on. "Unlike your homicidal cat," she muttered under her breath.

"It's a _cat_," he said flatly, hoping his oh-so-_loved_ familiar hadn't ruined his plans.

She made a disbelieving sound in her throat and shot another nasty glare at the orange thing before turning back towards the television. He was a little disappointed. She was more fun when she wasn't acting like the frightened baby rabbit she was. When she showed her fiercer side, he could almost believe she was the sort of person that could match him blow for blow. It was then that an idea began to form. Was it possible that she really had nothing to do with him and was just another victim of whatever or whoever had interfered? Giddiness rose within him. Somewhere out there, was something worth pissing off.

That meant- He glanced at the girl. No, he couldn't have his fun. He couldn't be absolutely sure that she wasn't involved in some way. He wouldn't risk that his answers died with her. Besides, it'd be nice to have a pet. Well, one whose mind he couldn't see into. As fond as he was of his anchor, his feline mind could be rather dull.

Noticing his gaze, she shifted uncomfortably and stole nervous glances in his direction. He sighed at the sight. That was going to get old fast. He had to find a way to get her to relax around him somehow or she would provide him neither information nor amusement. He stood.

"I'm going to bed. I haven't slept at all since we got here," he said. As he passed into the hallway, he paused. "I might not wake up until late tomorrow," he added before slipping into the bedroom he'd chosen for himself.

Madison stared at the hallway for a long while then glanced at his cat before flipping the channels, trying to find a news station. The orange glow of the cat's eyes was fixed on her form for a long while before the creature grew bored and settled down for a nap. Once she was sure the cat was out, she flipped back to the news station she had flipped past earlier. Time to find out where she was. Teekl opened one amber eye unnoticed.

Her frown deepened as she realized that the man was talking about aliens. Great, the only station she'd found broadcasting news was airing a nutjob. She turned it off and made herself comfortable on the couch to take a nap. She'd try again later to see if she could catch the evening news. Hopefully, the cat would be gone by then too.

Although he'd been instructed to spy on her, Teekl didn't see the point of watching an obviously sleeping person _again._ Instead, considering his master had taken off somewhere, Teekl turned into a shadow and slipped under the door. The basement was so very full of squeaking toys.

Madison grinned when she heard the meow from somewhere outside of the apartment. It had been a simple plan, and she'd almost really fallen asleep, but it had fooled the wicked creature and she was free to attempt finding a way out without risking being found out. Something ticked urgently at the back of her mind, something she was forgetting, but she paid it no mind.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: As usual, already on my DA. Please take the time to R&R if you like my story enough to have read this far. ^_^_

The kitchen window opened easily, unfortunately she was not yet desperate enough to risk breaking a leg. If he found her injured, she'd be bound to him until she was mobile again- if she was mobile again. She opened it and closed it a few times and smiled. That first night must have really been all in her head. Yet, his words from the night before made her wonder. Power? Maybe he was just as crazy as she was.

The window in the room she slept in, however, would not budge an inch. There was no way that window would be stuck. Not the one that led out to the fire escape. Something wasn't right but she could prove nothing to herself other than the window just being stuck. She didn't see any nails anywhere. What else could it be?

As she stretched to investigate further, her feet touched something cold. The carpet was a little bit wet. Her nightmare from the storm came back to her suddenly. She could have sworn something trailed physically along her spine at the moment. She spun around. The room was empty. All she could hear was the steady hum of the air conditioner and the distant sound of sirens.

She decided not to bother checking the door. She wouldn't be able to cope with finding it stuck like the window. Plus, she was trying not to think about how the cat got out and if she went near it she would have to. On some level, she already knew that she wouldn't get very far. She didn't even know for sure he was sleeping.

Suddenly, she found her body heavy. Something was pressing in on her from all directions Her vision began to darken. The rough texture of the carpet met her face a moment later and the physical world faded completely away.

The scent of wet earth clung to the air like a faint wisp of perfume. Soft earth crumbled in her grip. A tendril of incense briefly overpowered the smell of the forest. Her eyes opened to catch a candle-flame dancing against a backdrop of evergreens. The vision faded and she slipped back into darkness as the sound of the woods fell away.

Klarion was going to kill his cat. He really was this time. He'd find another anchor. The thought was ridiculous, he knew, but frustration easily turned his thought down a dark road. He couldn't completely blame the cat either. Even he had been fooled into thinking the girl had fallen asleep on the couch. He was a little troubled that he hadn't noticed she was up and about until he heard her muffled fall.

"What are you dreaming of?" he asked as he watched the girl's expression contort. She had a strange look of desperation and her hand moved weakly as if to reach for something. He frowned as he whispered, "Are my answers tumbling inside your head right now, hmm?"

The frown turned into a fully fledged grin as he realized that he'd stumbled onto a wonderful opportunity to manipulate her. He picked her up from the floor. Her eyes flickered open a few times but couldn't focus. Good, let her remember this. He pulled the covers back from the bed and, resisting the urge to drop her just for the fun of it, slipped her under them. She tried to cling to him in her unconscious state and he froze. With gritted teeth, he forced himself to gently pull her hands away from his person.

As well as he had managed to turn the situation in his favor, he was going to kill that cat- right after messing with a certain magickally-inclined heroine to cheer himself up. It felt like ages since he had caused any real chaos, as distracted as he'd been by the girl. Yes, he might even forget how displeased he was with Teekl.

Zatanna had been having a good day. Well, it was a good day in comparison to what it became when he showed up. She wouldn't easily forget that it technically was his fault that her father was, as far as she was concerned, dead and gone. Thanks to him, she had to look at Nabu walking around in her father's skin.

After everything he'd done, he had the gall to just sit there licking at an ice-cream cone on a park bench under the bright sunlight as if he wasn't a witch that went around doing evil for the sake of evil. She kept walking and pretended not to see him. She wasn't skipping school just to trade jabs with the immature brat of a villain.

She'd just about convinced herself that it was just coincidence when she saw him idly flipping through a magazine at a newsstand. She glared suspiciously at the newsstand. Weren't those things supposed to be extinct. She accidentally made eye contact and he winked. She growled and purposely turned to walk the other way. There he was again, sitting at a bus stop this time. She crossed her arms and then walked over.

"Alright, what are you up to?" she demanded.

"Not shirking my education," he replied. Her glare intensified at that. He felt it and grinned. "What would old bats say if he knew?"

"Why would old bats believe anything that spews from your mouth?" she said blandly.

"Because I lack the creativity to come up with such a mundane lie?" he responded.

"That," she paused for a moment, " made absolutely no sense."

She turned around and walked back the way she'd been going originally. With relief, she noticed that both he and the newsstand were absent. What was with that? Was the person he usually annoyed on vacation? Her heart caught in her throat. Or maybe the person he usually annoyed had gotten turned into Nabu's vessel. Great, he'd completely made her adventure joyless.

Later, after she'd manage to sneak into a club, she saw him again. This time, he was leaning against the bar taking a sip of what she hoped was wine. For all she knew, he had vampiric tendencies. Maybe it was the fact that he'd made her cry most of her day away. Maybe she just needed someone to be nasty to. Whatever it was, she walked over, grabbed the stool next to him, and glared.

"What, is your problem?" she said through a tense jaw.

"I need a distraction," he took another gulp.

"Can you even get drunk?" she asked.

"No," he said but that didn't stop him from taking another drink. "Can you?"

"Let's find out," she muttered as she abused her magick to procure herself a drink. "Well we both know what I'm trying to forget. Someone ran over your cat or something?"

"No, just someone I happen to need and therefore can't push off a cliff," he said.

She looked at him up and down. Maybe it was the bit of alcohol in her blood but she had to admit he was a bit attractive when he wasn't throwing hexes at her. "So you have a girlfriend then?"

"She's not my girlfriend," he corrected indignantly.

She grinned slyly, filing away the bit of information to taunt him with later, "Mhmm." She turned slightly to gauge his reaction but he was gone. She shrugged and drank some more. Shit, didn't she have some team-thing to do tonight? She groaned. Totally all his fault.

Klarion was feeling a little depressed, not that he'd admit it. Even the idea of unleashing an ancient artifact for Bats to deal with seemed unappealing. He was starting to fear there'd be no chaos to be had until he resolved his incredibly frustrating slip of a problem. At least he'd managed to get under the heroine's skin. He'd feel a lot better about that if she hadn't gotten under his. The nerve of her to even suggest that. He didn't want to dwell on it. Yuck.

Madison woke up to a feeling of contentment. Slowly, as she became more aware of her surroundings, the feeling began to slip from her grasp. What had she been dreaming of? She struggled to hold on to the thoughts. She was left with only the flickering warmth of a candle-flame consuming its wick in her mind. In its glow she found a calmness she hadn't realized she was missing. A piece of who she was finally falling back into place. As she focused on her mental flame, she started to realize that she could feel magick again- knew magick again.

She sat up and stared at the covers lying on her legs. How had she gotten onto the bed? Briefly, flashes of the witch, for she knew him now to be a witch, crossed her mind. Why had he done her that kindness? Why not just leave her on the floor? She filed away the little tidbit for later. Certainly, the pieces would fall into place soon enough. For the moment, it would serve her to pretend as if nothing had changed. She was still missing a vast amount of her memory and was uncertain of where she was. She'd have to find out the name of the city she was residing in.

Remembering the television and sensing that the other witch was not present in the apartment, she got out of bed and made her way back to the living room. The screen flickered on to show a news station as soon as she walked in. She startled, using her newfound sense to detect anything else that could have caused it. She was alone. Uncertainly, she imagined that she desired the screen to turn black again. It flickered and then turned off. She grabbed the remote and turned it back on. She'd have to be more careful or he would find her out. A thought occurred to her suddenly. If magick was as natural to her as it felt, why had she felt such surprise when the television bent to her will? Should that not have felt familiar instead?

There was a scratching at the door. Madison looked at it for a moment, trying to remember why the sound was important. Oh! That damnable cat. As she got up, she felt for the magick that bound the door shut. It was gone. She reached for the old knob and turned it. The door opened with ease and the cat waltzed inside, mouse squirming in its jaws. Something was odd about the mouse. It tickled at her newest, or arguably oldest, sense. Preoccupied with the idea of freedom, she paid it no mind. Soon, she was out the door, closing it behind her.

Teekl closed his jaws around the mouse, suffocating it, as he watched the door close behind the girl. He threw the mouse into the air and swallowed it whole before licking his whiskers in delight. He thought about informing his master of the new development but thought that perhaps with the girl gone his master would return to more comfortable accommodations. Instead, he settled down on the couch for a nap of his own. When his master came back, he might just assume that Teekl slept through her escape.

So the city finally had a name, Gotham. The name didn't strike her as particularly familiar and there wasn't anything in the grain of the sidewalk that looked particularly identifying. Not, that she could really remember what texture sidewalks were supposed to be but somehow she didn't think it differed by very much no matter where she went.

She knew she had to return before he decided to come looking for her. She might not remember much about magick but she was certain, based on her first experience with his abilities in the kitchen, that he would be able to use it to find her if he wanted to. In the meantime however, she was going to get herself some decent food. Time for a little dine and dash. She grinned at the thought. So she was a little on the rogue side, eh?


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Late, late, I know. I've been dreadfully ill for the past two weeks. Next chapter will be out sooner than that!_

The apartment was eerily quiet and unsettling. Teekl snoozed on the dark red of the couch, feline chest rising and falling rhythmically. His emotional turbulence from his encounter with the heroine came to a halt the moment he stepped inside. Everything was painted with the stark strokes of clarity that logic brought. The girl was gone.

He barely had time to process her absence when he had to step out of the way for the door swinging open behind him. Balancing a box on one hand and holding a heavy bag in the other, she walked past the threshold and into the apartment. He had to wonder how in the world she had gotten the door open. Now that her absence was no longer a concern, he took the opportunity to shoot a nasty glare at his cat.

Madison smiled to herself, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at the orangetastic terror. She didn't bother closing the door behind herself. She doubted he would leave it open for long. Still, she was mildly surprised that he didn't immediately follow her into the kitchen. As she began to wonder what could possibly be taking him so long, surely he was curious as to how she got out of his magickal cage, she heard an angry meow and a thud. She grinned. Take that kitty.

Her face still donned a grin when he walked in to see her put the box in the refrigerator. He was about to interrogate her when he noticed that there were two plates of steaming food on the table. Now, he was terribly confused. Did she not know she was a captive? He had been certain that she'd at least suspected it but now he wasn't so sure. After all, she had left and returned with food no less.

"Pick whichever you want," she said as she searched through the drawers for cutlery, "I sort of just pointed to stuff on the menu and hoped it was good."

He didn't particularly make a habit of eating outside the occasional snack for pleasure so he didn't quite know how to react to that. Finally, after giving the plates a long look, decided to go with what looked to be some kind of pasta with chicken. He was sure how to go about eating that at least. The monstrous, bread-looking thing on the other plate looked like it would be too difficult to eat.

Dinner was an awkward affair. Klarion was torn between shooting Madison suspicious looks and making disgusted faces at her eating habits, uncaring if she noticed. For her part, she was starting to become irritated by his blatant expressions. He was too focused on trying to figure out what game she could possibly be playing with him to notice her increasingly brazen glares. Eventually, he became so lost in the machinations of his mind that she just got up and left him with the dishes.

As she stepped into the cooler living area, she allowed herself a secretive smile. She may have been irritated at him but things were going smoothly the blank stare that had finally caused her to leave was anything to go by. She had succeeded in shifting the dynamics of the situation. While she couldn't get away from him, she'd managed to shift the perception her position from that of captive.

The door to her room closed behind her and she leant against it, letting out a heavy breath. Her success was not enough to soothe her. She was playing a very dangerous game and she knew it. Across the room, the flickering light of a streetlamp washed through the window. She walked over, looking into the night and pressed her forehead against the glass. Eyes closed, she pushed the lower pane up. She held back a sob as the glass slid up in its frame. She slid to the floor and turned her face to the breeze. It did nothing to dry the tears that began to silently stream down her face.

Eventually, she had moved to the bed and morning found her puffy eyed and sore. She was too tired. What had woken her? A chirp answered her unasked question. There was a bird standing on the sill of her open window. It was chirping angrily at something she couldn't see from the bed. She pulled the pillow over her head. It was useless, she knew but she had to try.

The fluttering of winds made her turn towards the window. The bird was gone and a single sleek black feather drifted to the floor. Stimulated to wakefulness, finally, she crawled out of bed and squatted to pick up the feather. Her eyes lifted to the window. She slid it shut and made sure it was locked before setting the feather on the inside sill. She pressed one hand against the glass and another to her forehead. She waited but though she was homesick, she couldn't recall what home was. A final tear slid down her face. She turned sharply away from the window and the tear slid off her face. Glittering for a moment in the morning sun, suspended, before it soaked into the carpet below.

She left the door to her room open. Yes, hers, the only thing that was it seemed. When she walked into the living area, a pair of golden eyes watched her from the space beneath the couch. The hiss was low, accusing, but she heard it. She met the orbs, challengingly. In the darkness, glowing, teeth elongated to sharp monstrous points that engulfed the entire space. Madison clutched a hand to her chest and pressed against the wall. Yet another thing to fear and be wary of. The thing seemed satisfied by her reaction and grew silent. Madison rushed into the kitchen, not giving it a chance to have a change of heart.

The kitchen was as she had left it the night before. She picked up the plates and scraped the leftover food into the trashcan. Watching the door warily, she made her way to the sink and experimented to find the hot water. She didn't remember why the dishes should be washed in hot water but she held on to that bit of knowledge as useless and dubious as it was. She ran the silverware under the water first, rubbing away the food with her fingers. She winced at how hot the water was. It was visibly steaming. She turned the handle for the cold water and the steam vanished soon after. She grabbed the worn sponge and poured soap over it. For a moment, she lost herself in the smooth practiced motions. Her body knew this. This was familiar. This was safe. She was safe so long as she did this - the last plate was clean. She put it down and hugged herself to stop from shaking. They could walk in any moment and they mustn't see her shake. She couldn't remember why that was important.

She shut off the water forcibly, trying to get a grip on herself. She placed both hands on the edge of the sink and leant against it, head hanging low. She found herself studying the pattern on the linoleum then the scabs on her feet. How in the fuck had she not noticed that she walked around the city barefoot? Nervously, she hoped there was a first aid kit somewhere in the house. She had no idea what she had walked in the day before.

"This is too much for one person to take," her voice broke mid-whisper.

"There are shoes in the closet that might fit you. I meant to tell you," the sound came from the doorway. How long had he been standing there? She hadn't heard him approach.

"I guess, my head's not really been where it ought have," she replied softly as she stole a glance at him. He was watching her intently but no more than he had previously. She swallowed the knot that was trying to form in her throat again. "Is there a first aid kit?" she asked, glad that her voice didn't break .

"I'll look," he said, his voice deeper than usual. She blinked, for all she knew, this was the way he usually talked and he'd been having some off days.

He came back moments later, too quickly to have actually searched, with an opaque plastic box adorned with a glaring red cross. As she took it from him, she suddenly realized that her cheeks were moist. He released the box and walked back out of the room. Another tear slid down her face, this time from what she thought was shame.

Klarion found that confusion was a very unpleasant state of being. He couldn't recall many instances that he had been so afflicted by it. He didn't understand. He didn't understand what game she was playing if she was playing one, why she hadn't tried to flee, or how and why she interfered with his magick. He locked himself in his room and sat cross-legged on the floor. He had a lot of things to sort out before he was called into service for the light again.

What did he know about her so far? She was terribly inept at magick, or pretending to be. She feared him enough to shrink when she noticed him enter the room but not enough to keep her from leaving the apartment. Was it fear of him that caused her to return? No, that would require her realizing his magick for what it was. Perhaps her memory was so muddled that she knew not where to go? That would certainly make more sense. His thoughts returned to a more pleasant state of chaos. By the time he left, he had a mad grin on his face at the thought of what was to come.

Madison found herself alone in the apartment again. As uncomfortable as she was with Klarion and his cat around, monsters that they were, there was something unsettling about being completely alone in the world. She didn't know where the feeling came from but suddenly it tainted everything a darker shade. Her arms wrapped around her form as best they could and she tried to sink into the material of the couch. She hated the feeling but the more she fought against it, the stronger it became. Finally, she flipped on the television to distract herself from the dark turn her thoughts had wandered down once more.

What she should have done was dig through that closet for clothes that fit and shoes that wouldn't fall off before heading out the door and never looking back. Well, that's what she told herself as the sun began to set outside the apartment. The sense that he would find her if she did was ever growing and despite how kind he had been to her so far she suspected that he had his own ends for not tying her up. What is it that he wanted that he couldn't get by forcing her? She tried to shake it, tell herself that he hadn't given her solid reasons to suspect his motives, but whatever deep part of her that whispered he was dangerous remained placid against her reason.

He didn't come back that night and for once, Madison slept without nightmares of strangers at her window haunting her. Instead, she dreamt that she was dreadfully alone. In her dreams, she was lost adrift and endless, shapeless, black sea. When morning light hit her eyes and shattered the chains that held her in that dark void, she woke with a gasp and wished for his return, if only so that she could have the shadow at her window once more instead of that engulfing nothingness. The nights passed slowly in his absence and oftentimes she found herself sleeping during the day to avoid the bad dreams. Just as her nightmares began to fade and she was starting to find her ground again, he returned to fracture what her psyche had managed to heal in the time he was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Here you go, a treat since I took so long to post the last one. :D_

The night was dreary with rain threatening to fall at any moment and make thoroughly sure that his hair ceased to defy gravity. The city's leading meteorologists were baffled by the sudden, unprecedented appearance of heavy, dark clouds bloated with rain. He knew that his scheme was meant to be nothing more than an elaborate distraction doomed to failure but that didn't take the edge off failure's barbed sting. Normally, winning didn't matter to him, but at the time he could have certainly used the ego boost and he somewhat resented having it denied courtesy of a bunch of little brats. The street around him filled with a turbulent fog.

Grey-white wisps blew in as the door to the apartment building seemingly swung open of its own accord. Turning to look, Glenda knocked over the old stool she usually sat at behind the counter and it clattered noisily to the floor. She should have been relieved when the young man walked into the building, disproving her fear of wicked spirits come to torment, but she couldn't help but think that he could have passed for one himself. Thankfully, he headed straight for the stairs without so much as a glance at her. The woman, though she wasn't Catholic, was tempted to cross herself.

The blue glow of the television accentuated the fear on Madison's sharp features as she froze, watching his silhouette at the door. The faint blue light only managed to darken the shadows that hid his eyes from her view. Yet, she knew he was looking at her. There was no doubt in her mind that those eyes were locked onto hers and she couldn't look away. So that's how the baby bird feels at the mercy of a cobra.

The door creaked shut but she knew without looking down at his hands that he hadn't moved. An ocean roared inside her, wailed that she was in utmost danger and that she should run. No, don't run. This voice was deeper, calmer, knowing. If you run, he'll give chase, like a lion upon a gazelle. The image held her still, not daring to even sit up, as he approached.

His hand grasped her neck firmly as he hovered over her, close enough for her to feel his heavy breath on her lips. His eyes bore into hers with what she knew must have been the most loathing she had ever had directed her way. The intensity brought tears to her eyes, diffusing a salty scent into their shared air. It wasn't until she was shaking that he was satisfied. He left her there, shuddering on the couch, gritting her teeth together to keep them from shaking.

She watched him disappear into the dark hallway and only then did she let herself breathe again. That look had been murderous. She could have sworn her numbers were up when that door swung open. Her hand softly traced where his fingers had gripped her. What would have happened to her if she'd ran?

After she was certain that he wouldn't be coming back out, she walked as softly as she could to the room that she was beginning to see as her own. That time, the click of the lock behind her fell far short of comforting. It was dawn before she fell asleep and in her dreams, the man at the window came in and pressed her into her mattress.

He sat at the end of the bed and watched the girl sleep, softly stroking Teekl on his lap. He shouldn't have taken out his frustrations on the girl. Unlike Teekl, she didn't have a psychic connection with him to tell her when to make herself scarce. He sighed, at that rate he'd never know how she did it even if she remembered after all the stress he constantly put her through. He was beginning to think it would be more productive to just hand her off to the Justice Brats. Then again, he didn't really want the little almost-nabbed-by-Nabu girl to actually figure out how to tamper with his magick. Yeah, he enjoyed a challenge but he didn't want her to have a chance at winning.

The girl shifted and for the first time he wished that he could safely enter the realm of her dreams. He was chaos personified but inside the chaos of another's sleeping mind, it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. That was one of the reasons he didn't take sentient hosts like the Lord of Order. He supposed it was easier to possess someone when you could easily tell them apart from yourself. With Teekl, it was fairly easy because of the difference in size, intellect, and senses. No, he'd have to do it the slow way. It wasn't worth risking his essence over.

Light finally stole her away from her dreams, much too soon and not soon enough. Her body felt heavy and mentally she likened herself to a metal statue complete with unbending joints. Breath was almost painful as her mind resisted the return to reality. As terrible as her dreams were, she was perfectly content to remain tormented within them forever if it meant that she could go without waking to the monster that inhabited her reality.

Desperately, she tried to cling to the last remnants of her dreams only to have them slip from her grasp as her body decided it was time to come fully awake. Still, stubbornly she kept her eyes closed and her breathing even, hoping that she would again fall to oblivion. It didn't work and she slowly became aware of the weight of someone's gaze upon her. Her eyes slid open and jaded as she was after the nightmares, met his dark ones with the same perpetual cold intensity they held.

Surprise flickered subtly over his eyes at the hard look. Something inside him stirred, wary, as he held her gaze. Then, her eyes softened and she looked away. She pulled her legs up like as shield between the two of them and whatever dark, familiar, creature had looked at him through her eyes was once again hidden away in its soft shell. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He knew it was there now and he'd be watching for it. Perhaps, he could coax it out and perhaps if he did he would finally know the secrets she hid from herself.

"Sorry about last night," he said and had to keep himself from wincing at how insincere he sounded even to his own ears. Surely, he could do better than that. He frowned.

She was watching him out of the corner of her eye. He hadn't noticed until quite then. The atmosphere in the room became quite uncomfortable. The weight of his lie hung in the air between them, both aware of it and neither acknowledging it for what it was. She turned her head fully toward him but didn't meet his eyes. She was listening. He didn't have anything else to say.

"I've had worse," she said blandly and didn't attempt to disguise the emptiness of her words. They both knew that if she had, she didn't have the memory to draw upon.

The look he gave her was one she couldn't quite decipher but she ventured to describe it somewhat like knowing. Was there a trace of amusement there? She didn't know him well enough to be sure. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them closer to her as she shifted her gaze to a spot on the floor. When she finally looked up it was in time to catch him stretching and yawning. The act was so human that subconsciously, the tension fled her shoulders and her brow unwrinkled.

Realizing he was being observed he shot her a playful glare once he was done. She stared at him blankly and he winked. Her eyes widened and he rolled his own in reaction.

"I'm not the boogeyman you know," he paused, a thoughtful look crossing his face, before muttering, "Although that was perhaps not the best example." He considered, perhaps, that telling her he had started that story for a bit of fun wouldn't go over very well.

"No, the boogeyman would just eat me and be done with it," she said mildly.

There it was again, that dark slithering thing, as if it the soft meek shell was having trouble keeping it in where it belonged. He wondered suddenly, what she would have said right then if he'd asked her about her origins. He sighed. It seemed that he might never really get an answer out of her. She was so wrapped up in layers and therefore he doubted, in her current state, that she'd know her true self from the false selves she wore like scarves.

Madison shifted, uncomfortable under his gaze. She had the odd sense that he could see and understand more of her than she would like. The thought brought a frown to her face. She knew so little about herself that she had nothing to hide. Granted, the person before her wasn't the best example of a trustworthy individual, but should she be so guarded when she had nothing she could give away? It's not like magick came up in every day conversations. She thought perhaps that she'd have been more comfortable if he'd given her a hug. Laughter rushed out of her before she could stop it and she was left to rub the back of her neck as his expression shifted to what she thought may have been surprise.

Silence fell over the room, neither knowing quite what to do about the other and both coming to understand that somehow fate had thrown them together with no easy way out. Madison was weighed by the knowledge of the person she was bound to, his darkness inescapable. For a moment, the silence pressed in, living and hungry. Madison hugged herself and it occurred to Klarion that he wasn't the only one in the room to experience the strange sensation.

"I'm afraid I've got an errand to run I'd forgotten about. I'll be gone quite a while," he said, voice lacking inflection in his distraction. His thoughts had found a new direction to flow towards.

She stiffened, recalling the events of the night before. Her mind buzzed, trying to find a hidden motive that might not be there at all. She was hyper aware of him and as a result noticed, for the first time, that his chest didn't rise and fall rhythmically as it should. Her mind stilled and focused on the new information. She was certain that she would have noticed something like that before.

"Alright," she found the words slipping from her mouth placidly without her consent. It should concern her how often that was happening but she was content enough to hand over the reins to whatever part of her mind knew what to say.

Klarion nodded absently. She didn't know why she expected some sort of smile. She worried her lip and hoped he didn't realize how easily he could get under her skin when he acted almost human. Still, he hadn't moved to get up and she found herself examining him for any outward signs that he was other. It wasn't doubt that drove her to look, her trust in magick was solid, but rather curiosity.

She caught the moment when he returned to the present moment. His eyes cleared and relaxed when they had been narrow. His whole being seemed to smoothen as he came back to himself and his breath rose and fell evenly. She watched him leave, her own eyes narrowed in thought. She carefully placed that bit of information in a mental place where it would stick before making her own way out of the room.

The front door hadn't opened. It wasn't that she hadn't heard it, the apartment was unnaturally quiet. It simply hadn't been opened. This was confirmed when she noticed the chain on the door. It didn't surprise her much. She wondered if it was that he wasn't detailed oriented or just that he'd been distracted enough to zone out with her present. Her attention came back to the silence. She was going to have to bell that cat because she wasn't confident it wouldn't notice her magick aura brushing against it if she tried to track it that way.

"There'd better be some cereal left," she grumbled to herself though she was starting to suspect that she was the only one that ate on a thrice a day basis in the apartment.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: This is one of my favorite chapters so far, enjoy!_

Dust drifted lazily in the halo of light Klarion had conjured around himself. Teekl was content enough to walk along beside him and stare at the motes as they swam in the filthy air. Tombs were boring. He hated tombs. He was starting to doubt how much he wanted to know what his weakness was. Tombs were indescribably boring. Was boredom worth that grain of knowledge? He continued on aimlessly. He'd stumble upon the right chamber eventually.

"You'd think Teekl, that a sorcerer would have magickal traps in his tomb," he whined to his cat. Teekl didn't bother to acknowledge him, entranced as he was by the motes. Klarion envied the cat's ability to be fascinated by something so simple.

"I suppose most sorcerers don't expect to die though so that might explain it," he continued, trying to fight off the oppressive silence. He could vanish the darkness with magick but the silence was another matter and he didn't trust either recent events considered.

"You're a cat, can't you meow or something," he said, exasperated. Teekl graced him with a look, meowed, and went back to the dust motes.

"You're lucky you're more useful than a dog," he muttered without conviction.

The corridor stretched on into the darkness ahead of him. His lips parted in a sigh before he let silence cocoon around him once more. He found the soft falling of his footsteps comforting as he walked on. They fell, one after the other in a predictable pattern, unsettling the film of dust beneath his feet and slowly he began to relax.

If he'd been paying more attention to his surrounding he may have noticed Teekl fall a step behind. The cat began to cast curious glances behind them as they walked. His ears flexed this way and that and soon enough the feeling found himself at the edge of the circle of light. A sharp animal by nature and made more so by magick, he bounded forward until he found himself once again safely walking at his master's side.

The witch kept walking, by then lost in thought, unaware of his familiar's antics. Distracted as he was, he didn't notice the slowly encroaching shadows until Teekl leapt to his shoulder. In the instant it took for him to come aware that he now stood in a single beam of light, the gaping maw of darkness snapped shut and he was engulfed in a lightless soundless world.

His eyes flickered closed and the storm settled into an icy calm inside him. His senses extended. The dust and stones faded from existence, fleeting images of those that had walked before slipped away into smoky fog. Teekl's beating heart glowed brilliantly in his consciousness for a moment. There, that swirling hungry void at his back. He slid his left foot back, completed his turn, extended his right arm, and blue-green flame leapt forward from his fingertips.

A grinning skull, desiccated muscle clinging to the bone, imprinted itself to his memory in stark black shadows and sickly hued highlights. The next moment, it was swallowed in the brilliant blue-white of the fire's climax. As the spell's afterglow began to fade, he caught cracked ribs heaving over mummified lungs drawing breath. The final gasp of light was swallowed by the creature's smoky exhale. He brought his hand to his mouth for show and silently cast a shield around Teekl to protect the creature from the noxious gas.

Something that was more cough than laugh echoed in the darkness. Klarion took three steps back gingerly and the creature struck the empty air where the witch had been. A long rasping sound, like wind passing through a ravine, bounced off the walls until it seemed to surround him from every direction. He wasn't fooled. He knew exactly where the creature was and felt its footsteps under his feet. He stepped slowly carefully, around the creature as it walked past. He stiffened as the crumbling cloth of the creature's cloak nearly brushed against him.

He held his gaze on the spot where the creature stopped, knowing without needing to see that it tilted it's head from side to side. He stood still and held Teekl still with one his right hand. His left hand rose slowly to trace symbols in the air. By his feet, shadows bubbled like mist and slowly began to take shape. Finally, from the dark trembling fog around him rose a beast somewhere between a hound and lion. His body felt heavy. Bringing that monstrous thing forth from nothing was dark magick but it certainly was not chaos magick. Being what he was, anything closer to order on the spectrum took a toll on him.

Black tendons thrummed and the beast leapt forward, distance slipping away beneath massive paws. Darkness was no object to something that relied primarily on its sense of smell. It fell on the undead creature, massive jaws crushing bone where they landed and claws ripping ribs away from spine. The sound of dry bone breaking was the only cue Klarion needed to dash in the direction the thing had come from. Following the trail it had left behind in the memory of the stones would lead him right to the burial chamber. His teeth flashed in the darkness, a victorious grin.

Gotham city's air was sticky as the afternoon storm came to an end and skies cleared into the evening. Madison half sat on the windowsill, legs stretched out on the moist metal of the fire-escape. The smell of wet pavement was intimately familiar. Her dark eyes focused on the puddles below as they caught the first beams of starlight.

"Looks like I'm a city girl," she said before looking up at the few stars that dotted the sky.

Orion gleamed down at her and she couldn't help but think that it wasn't the same constellation she'd known before. No, not a thought, a feeling. Somewhere deep down, she knew those stars were as foreign to her as the city around her. She stood, closing the window behind her, and leant forward against the railing. As she gazed out to the glimmering city lights, winking in the night, something inside her stirred driving her over the railing and away over the pavement. The night called, and she needed to answer, needed to chase the feeling that might give her a clue as to who she was.

Water splashed around her feet as she stepped through a puddle in the sidewalk. A door opened and the sounds of laughter and voices followed. She turned to the sound to see a young couple, dressed in sleek clothes step out. Behind them the door swung shut, cutting off the sound. _Did I have anyone? _Inside, people dined, some smiling and others stiff in their seats. _Am I like them? Part of their world?_ No, she decided, she wasn't like them at all. Her feet carried her on.

As she walked up to a bus stop, a bus passed her and came to a stop. She hopped on, pressing her hand to the bus card reader out of habit. The light flashed green on the device. She wanted to stop and stare at what she'd just done but the bus was moving and she decided to find her seat instead. _Who am I, to deceive so easily and without thought? _Outside the windows, the city rolled by.

For the second time, Klarion found himself arriving to an empty apartment. He felt as if she should just walk through the front door at any moment but the minutes ticked by and she did not. He occupied himself by examining the aged gold cylinder he had retrieved from the burial chamber. It seemed sealed completely, as if it were a rod of solid metal. He knew better. Though it neither looked or felt it, the thing was hollow. He could sense that much but didn't quite know how to go about getting at whatever was inside. An hour passed and he finally set the thing down.

"I may as well go make sure she hasn't run off to another city," Klarion said as he reached over to stroke Teekl's head. "Guard this thing while I'm going," he told the cat before he vanished from the apartment.

Smoky air assaulted his nostrils. He found himself inside a dimly lit hole-in-the-wall bar. Trails of smoke drifted his way from the mouth of a leather wearing woman next to what looked like a pay phone. He gave her a sly grin and condensed the clever love-potion out of the smoke. It pooled in his palm, inky black and oily. He pulled it into a ball and held up between his thumb and index finger for her to see. He slipped it into his sleeve and walked away. The woman stared after him before dropping the cigarette and crushing it under her boot. It was only an ordinary cigarette and no longer held any use to her.

Her copper skin caught the light on her cheekbones, the rest of her face lost in soft shadows. Her eyes traced his movement across the room but didn't meet his until he loomed over her. She felt, in a distant part of her mind, that he drew shadows to him like some people drew lewd stares. Her mind was clouded. The dim lights seemed like a dazzling display. He captured her wrist, almost with bruising force. Her wide pupils focused on the amber liquid licking at the edges of the shot glass. The liquor settled and darkened until it could pass for opaque if not for the clear edges against the glass.

"I'd stop gulping these down if I were you," his voice crawled along her skin, unnaturally dark for him. Her lip trembled as she looked up at him. She almost missed his usual high-pitched whine.

He pulled her up by the wrist. The drink fell from her grasp, liquid beginning to look like blood, and struck the ground with enough force to leave a dent. Instead of falling on its side and spilling its contents, it balanced on its edge before its bottom snapped to the floor as if magnetized. Not a drop was missing from the glass. Klarion pressed the bottom of his shoe over the little glass. He shifted his weight and it gave beneath it, leaving only sludge from the liquid and glass dust. All eyes in the bar looked up only to see his visage as beastly. Even Madison, used to his magickal aura was cowed by the oppressive force of it crowding the bar.

From a door that she hadn't noticed before, a man stepped out. His face was an unnatural shade of red and the veins below his skin was pulsating. His fat chin bobbed and his chest puffed as he prepared to let out a bellow. Then, he caught sight of Klarion. Sweat beaded visible on his brow.

Klarion pulled Madison to his body crushingly. She felt his muscles stiffen under his clothes but outwardly he displayed a manic grin with a hostile edge in the pull of his lips. She wished the glass was still in her hand so she could down it in one gulp. The tension might as well have been a living creature. His fingers dug into her hip painfully but she had enough sense left through her mental glaze not to wince, the situation as it was.

She was filled with a sudden sense of vertigo that would have had her spilling her guts over the floor if he hadn't still been holding on to her so tightly. She clung to him, unsure she could keep her footing without him. He pried her off himself and pushed her onto the couch. She was lucid enough to shoot him a glare but was surprised that his attention was not on her. That was unexpected. She'd fully anticipated his ire. Suddenly, she felt very tired.

"I haven't had enough today apparently," he whined as he crouched to level his gaze to the surface where he'd left both cat and cylinder. "Why let them take it and chase after them Teekl? Why not fight?" he whispered, unsettling the few lonely dust motes that rested on the surface.

He glanced sideways to catch the girl's puzzled expression. He was fairly certain that she wouldn't be going anywhere in the state she was in. He pouted as he thought. There was always the possibility that she could take a turn for the worse. _You destroyed the glass and with it the enchantment. Her aura will purify itself without aid. _Convinced, he spared her one last glance before vanishing.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: This should be the chapter that hits the 20k mark! R&R if you can _

The long years of being a familiar to a Lord of Chaos had taught Teekl much. One of the lessons he'd learned particularly well was how to smell trouble before his master did and to make himself scarce if necessary. So it was that trouble found the orange feline wedged in the two inch space between the bottom shelf of the bookcase and the floor. Teekl was pleased at least that the two thieves hadn't been able to exist through neither the front door nor the fire escape where they'd gained entry, forcing them to jump unceremoniously out the kitchen window. Lithe feline that he was, he had no trouble jumping down after them as soon as they rounded the corner of the building.

Impulsive as he was, Teekl's master would have more than likely done away with the thieves but Teekl, despite being a cat, was keen and level headed enough to realize something more was going on in the picture. Well, his master would get it eventually but not in time to do much about it. It fell then, to Teekl to investigate and who better to track thieves in the night than a cat?

The thieves, a thickly built man and a tall woman, led the feline a ways through the urban landscape and then to the winding alleyways of the inner city. Working streetlights became sparser the further on they went. Though this posed no problem to the cat, the she-thief was apparently night blind. Her companion made quiet sounds of disapproval in the back of her throat as he led the way.

Teekl turned a corner after the pair only to find himself in a deserted dead-end alleyway. The wind flipped a wet page of newspaper over and the lone light fixture in the place buzzed to life for a moment before succumbing to its wear again. The cat sat and watched for a moment, tail flicking to and fro before deciding there was nothing in the alleyway that would lead him to the thieves. His master would be quite cross with him over losing that cylinder. Teekl considered. There weren't that many sorcerers capable of opening the thing. It would turn up, he decided, in time.

Klarion was cross indeed but that had more to do with finding Teekl sitting at the edge of a park pond eyeing the koi rather than chasing down the thieves than anything. He picked the cat up by the scruff of his neck and gave him a long sour look. Teekl simply meowed in greeting, as if he hadn't just lost something of great value to his master. Klarion sighed. He highly doubted that his familiar grasped exactly how dangerous the scroll could be to them. He tucked the cat under his arm and decided to walk home. How quickly he'd grown comfortable with his new situation. He wondered briefly if he'd be able to adapt once he parted ways with the girl.

The apartment wasn't dark enough. Madison wanted to move, find a closet she could lock herself in away from all the light and noise but she daren't brave the nausea that came with the motion. If she'd been more lucid, she would have perhaps opted to allow herself to vomit out what was making her so ill. Instead, she curled further into a ball and pressed her face into the back of the couch. The moment he appeared again was marked by vile rising to the back of her throat. Her magickal sense was particularly overwhelmed.

"And I thought I was having a bad day," Klarion found himself saying as soon as he arrived.

He let Teekl fall to the floor and walked over to where the girl was. She'd obviously had much more of the stuff than he'd though. He'd expected she would have nothing more dangerous than mental fog and possibly a splitting headache when she woke the next morning. Well, he'd have to get it out now. He grimaced both at the thought of having to be in physical contact with her so long and the thought of smelling the stuff as it came back up. It was going to be a long night. He considered the lightening sky. Day, then.

The world heaved as she was pulled roughly from the edge of unconsciousness. Her stomach churned as she was dragged to her feet. Knees wobbled dangerously, trying to hold her weigh, before they finally succumbed. A hand caught her painfully by the arm and led her forward. Too disoriented to resist, she took an uneasy step forward. The world shuddered, or her sight of it did and she gasped into her next step. Words tumbled in the air around her but she couldn't catch any of them. As soon as she thought she could wrap her mind around them they oozed into something unrecognizable.

In what seemed a few short steps, her feet hit the cold floor of the bathroom. She felt herself being lowered to the floor and she pressed against it desperately, trying to keep the world still. Someone tugged her hair back and fingers pressed a thick viscous liquid into her mouth. It felt like honey but tasted foul enough to raise every hair on her body. She grabbed at the arm, trying to get the fingers and substance on them out of her mouth. It didn't work, the arm was firmer than it felt and didn't budge.

Klarion snarled when she decided biting down might be a good idea but didn't remove his fingers. It wasn't that he hadn't anticipated she'd try but she'd bitten down with more force than he'd anticipated. It was painful but hadn't broken skin. She continued to struggle until the stuff dissolved and absorbed into her body.

A moment after that, she scrambled for the toilet but her stomach emptied before she could reach it. Once she started, she found she couldn't stop. Even breathing, with the air filled with the smell of her own bile, provoked her stomach further and opening her eyes wasn't much better.

"...should take care of whatever made it into your flesh," was all that Madison caught before she dry heaved.

Now that her mind was clearer, she found that she felt worse. As amplified as everything felt, she was glad that she was aware enough to feel it all. Slowly, she leant back until she was sitting down. As soon as she felt steady, she wiped her vomit covered hands on the cloth of her jeans.

"If you're feeling better, I'll leave you to wash," he said but didn't wait for her to respond.

The door closed with a click that was too loud for her over sensitized hearing. She was left sitting in a puddle of her own vomit, body still shuddering and stomach still weakly attempting to turn itself inside out. She closed her eyes and gathered herself. Then, she stood shakily and made her way to the shower. The water ran a little too warm for her taste the first time but she got in, clothes and all.

She woke to the sound of the rusty faucet being turned. She registered the freezing stream of water just before it died off to a few droplets hanging from the head. The water on her skin began to bubble, as if it were boiling and she found herself dry.

"Teekl has never been this much trouble," he whined.

Her bones were still cold from how long she'd been under the water. She wanted to say something witty in protest of being compared to a cat but her tongue, chilled, stumbled over her words. She felt slow, a machine that someone forgot to oil. She caught his gaze dully and his expression shifted to over the top exasperation. He reached forward and pulled her up. Once out of the tub, she paused, remembering the vomit on the floor.

She wasn't moving fast enough for him and he was in no mood for patience, not that he ever had much of that. He picked her up and teleported to the room she slept in. He dropped her on the bed, grimacing at how often he found himself doing that. It was only further motivation to find out what was going on. Then again, when had he ever turned away any chaos in his life?

He watched her as she slept, deep in thought. The cylinder kept coming back to his mind. He doubted anyone could open the thing, much less without causing themselves great grief in the process but he didn't like the idea of what could potentially be information on his own weakness floating around somewhere shifting from unfriendly hands to the hands of potential foes. Then again, whoever stole it seemed to know what they were looking for. He acknowledged that they may have just been looking for something with enough magick in it to make a small fortune in the market of such things. It was the only such object in the house and Teekl, being alive, wouldn't give out the same sort of magickal aura people like that were interested in. A good thing too, given that his familiar was his most obvious weakness. Relief filled him. They hadn't taken Teekl and if they meant him harm, specifically, they would have taken him. _Well, unless they didn't know._

He squeezed the little ball of potion he'd nicked from the woman in the bar between his thumb and index finger. He let it slide down to his palm. As, he thought, he absently refined it into something more powerful, more of use to him. Such things could come in handy and he didn't have the patience to brew the base. He had never been very interested in the precise art of potion making. Direct magick with instant gratification had always held more of an appeal. By the time he slid it back into the sleeve of his suit, the ball had lost some of its opacity and gained iridescence.

Day turned to night and then to day once more before Madison came to. Her head was pounding and she felt that she could hear every little noise in the entire building. She didn't open her eyes, she wasn't sure she could handle any more senses. Unconsciousness slipped over her again and when she woke again, the sky outside was the bright blue of midmorning and glass was being pressed to her lips. She drank greedily and thanked Klarion before climbing back under the covers.

The next time she woke, she found the orange terror curled up on her chest. She stiffened but the cat did nothing more than turn an ear in her direction and even that was only long enough to ensure she wouldn't deprive him of his spot.

"Come on cat," she whispered, "I have to pee. You're really not going to like it if I just pee right here."

Teekl opened one eye to look at her before closing it slowly and curling further into a feline disc. Madison groaned and decided she'd have to dislodge him if she wanted to get to the bathroom before her bladder exploded everywhere. Carefully, she slid her body along the mattress, trying not to take the cat with her. It worked, the cat merely flicked his tail in response, not even bothering to look up at her. As soon as her feet hit the floor, she made a mad dash for the bathroom.

She hadn't expected to find Klarion standing outside the bathroom door. Certainly not to have him take her face in his hands and turn it to and fro, watching her eyes. She had an odd sense that he might take out a flash light and shine it in her eyes to see if the pupils contracted. She was less flattered by his concern when brushed his hands on his pants after touching her. She gave him a blank stare, too tired to manage a proper glare. He merely smirked in response. She took that to mean he was amused that she was insulted. She brushed against him as she passed just to get under _his_ skin for once.

He pinned her against the wall and her thoughts were quick to mockingly remind her that she was dealing with someone far beyond her skill and power. She wasn't playing with fire, she was tossing a nuclear reactor up in the air and catching it or perhaps using radium to paint her skin. The latter comparison filled her mind with images and sounds. She winced. He stroked her face as a lover would. The entire display only served to convince her that he was adverse to touch. He was quite good at hiding it but she knew. She wondered if it had occurred to him that someone that wasn't repulsed by it would have taken no action. Her mind latched onto the idea and stored it for later use. Still, her heart beat painfully against her chest in the long moments before he released her.


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: Shuffling pieces on the board for the sake of plot. Bear with me._

The night sky was unusually clear and Zatanna could make out more constellations than usual. The moon was taking her monthly rest and in the absence of her humbling magnetism, the stars shone with shameless abandon. The girl released a dreamy sigh as her mind was stolen temporarily by the allure of the night. Too soon, she was brought back to the ground upon arriving at her intended destination.

Silence made the air heavy in the neighborhood. The girl shivered as she felt herself pass through a barrier that warded against something other than her. The silence deepened as she walked further in. It wasn't a true silence in the sense that it wasn't completely absent of sound. Rather, it was as if silence fell over sound, having substance of its own, and sought to suffocate it. She brushed the hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She slowed, uncertain suddenly of where to go.

"Tel ym dnim kaerb eerf fo tnemtnahcne," she murmured into her hand before giving a few false coughs to cover her use of magick.

The prickle at the back of her neck was a sure sign that someone was watching her. Zatanna had plenty of experience with being observe and could not mistake the feeling for anything else. Instinctively her heart sped, recognizing that the observer was not a threat to be ignored. The pads of her fingers ached for the silken feel of her gloves against them. However, they were absent. She was just Zatanna, a regular girl that liked night strolls and certainly didn't know a thing about magick.

She pulled out her earbuds and stuck them in her ears. The other end didn't connect to anything but she had to convince the person that was watching her that she was just a foolish distractible girl that didn't know how to keep herself out of trouble. The sensation faded and she resisted a smile. The barriers had worried her as she could not cross them undetected but once they deemed her a non-threat, the element of surprise was hers. Her mouth twitched downwards as her control slipped for a moment. She needed everything on her side that she could get.

Admittedly, she wasn't the best at putting the puzzle pieces together but with her father in early retirement thanks to Nabu, she was the only one that could have put the puzzle together. Nabu may have known about it but he didn't particularly concern himself with what he called unavoidable chaos. He'd actually made an unrelated comment along that note earlier in the week to her. However, she wasn't of the same opinion and decided to pursue the matter.

It was this cascade of small disturbances that brought her to the home of one of Gotham's nastiest magick folk. Thankfully, it was long past the little girl's, if she could be called that, bed time and Zatanna had the perfect cover. She was to babysit the girl while her parents went to catch a movie. When the parents returned, she'd leave with the object and a nice wad of cash for her trouble to boot.

The plan, to her great disappointment, went off without a hitch. With all that security, she hadn't actually expected for her plan to work but she found herself back in her room with the cylinder and no one the wiser. She fell back onto the bed and held the object up to the light. Now, all she needed to do was figure out what it did and how it did it.

Elsewhere, Klarion found himself very near to throwing a temper tantrum. He'd spent the week carefully brining down the most dangerous magicks surrounding the place where the cylinder was kept only to have the magic brat simply waltz in and take it without any trouble. It took all of his limited self control to stop himself from taking his rage out on the unsuspecting city. All that held him back was the knowledge that the girl might have a stroke of mental luck and connect the two events together. Instead, he occupied himself by setting a false trail for the little wannabe villain in the suburbs to follow.

He didn't particularly like the idea of doing Zatanna any favors but it was in his best interest that the knowledge in that tome didn't fall into the hands of someone that had no moral qualms about using it against him. Zatanna, at least, would pause upon learning any move against him would require putting someone innocent in harm's way. He hadn't really thought of it that way before but he supposed the girl might grant him some immunity from certain heroes. He held no illusions that the Batman or Nabu would fall into that category, however. No, he was better of getting it back before either of the aforementioned caught a whiff that it had anything to do with him.

By the time dawn crept over Gotham city, Klarion had made sure that the child would follow a trail straight to her death at the maw of a sphinx. It was rather fortunate that she'd tangled herself up in his affairs inadvertently. It was always best to get rid of threats before they became such. After all, would he be a Lord of Chaos if someone had suffocated him in his crib? Certainly not. From the mistakes of his predecessors, he could only gain. He would not be so arrogant or noble as they had been.

He returned to the apartment with enough time to watch Madison sleep. Not having much need of it himself, he was quite fascinated by the activity. It had been so long that he had forgotten what it was like to dream. He itched to enter her sleeping mind and take his answers in the form of twisting dreams. Still, he refrained, fearful of losing any part of himself within her. When the benefits of the act started to outweigh the fears, he left before he did something he'd regret later. Fortunately for him, this generally happened long before she woke to find him there.

Madison woke gasping for breath and clutching at her too-fast beating heart. Her eyes remained partially glazed with sleep as her mind tried to gather exactly what it was that she had to fear. After a few moments, her breathing began to steady as her mind cleared. If it weren't for the low hum of the A/C and the distant sounds of the city, Madison could almost believe that she was completely alone. She picked at the threads in the sheet absently as she carefully sorted recent events in her mind.

Her success was limited. Apart from the incident it the hallway, not much had made into her memory. There wasn't anything to digest other than the knowledge that she had been terribly close to meeting some sort of unfortunate fate. She turned her eyes to the window and hugged herself. The outside world suddenly seemed dangerous. Even if she'd had an inkling of what to do with herself in the world, what guaranteed her that it wouldn't swallow her?

"I don't even know my last name," she whispered against her knees.

For nearly a week, Madison spent her days devoid of hope. The only thing she had to look forward to upon waking up was Klarion's mysterious absence. The first and second days, her recent trauma was too fresh for her to think about leaving. By the fourth day, she finally attempted to leave. Luck, however, wasn't with her and none of them would budge. Klarion had taken a great care to secure the apartment and she hadn't the energy to attempt to work magick to free herself.

The weekend came and drive had finally begun to fill the void that hope had left behind. Whether Klarion's absence had weakened his magick or whether the magick at the window decided starvation would soon become a threat on her life, on Tuesday the window finally gave. It wasn't until Wednesday that she mustered up the courage to make a go at freedom once more.

Madison had never considered, to her recollection, where she stood on the compass of morality but the ease with which she was collecting wallets was telling in her opinion. She wasn't quite sure that she liked the idea that she may have been an awful person but couldn't begrudge her past self for the skill that enabled her survival without an identity.

She could have picked a better bush. The one she was in was making her have strong desires to sneeze. Still, it was too late to move as the sun was sinking somewhere beyond the tree-line. The park-goers were becoming scarcer and soon enough the dredges of society would be on the prowl for unsuspecting victims. In the remaining light, she finished counting the cash. It amounted to a few hundred dollars. It was enough for a bus ticket and a down payment.

Morning arrived with the call of birds. Her bones ached from sleeping on the ground but for the first time her dreams were undisturbed by shadowy specters. She stretched, careful not to rustle the branches should anyone be close enough to investigate the sound. A smile stretched across her face in silent congratulation of her clear-headedness.

Carefully, she began to dust herself off and pick leaves from her hair. She thought as she groomed. If she took off to another city, surely he'd find her and she'd have wasted her money. If she sought a place to live, he could do the same. She'd need some way to hide herself from him to really escape. _Lots of people need things like that and where there is supply, there is demand. I should go back and bide my time. _

She flinched at that last thought. It was rational and true but there was something about it that didn't sit well and she couldn't pick out what it was. She cast her suspicions aside after further scrutiny. It was her best choice though she admitted such to herself grudgingly. Anything else she did would most likely turn out to be futile. She didn't know how far he could track her but the idea of what he would do should he be forced to chase her across the country was enough to give her heavy doubts about just running off. Mind made up, she climbed out of the bush.

"One small problem," she said to herself in the growing light," which way back to the apartment?"

It should have occurred to her that it might take him a while to come after her considering his recent absences but it did not. A few days later, dirty and worse for wear, she found herself back on familiar streets. The bubble of anxiety in her gut finally burst into relief and she exhaled.

"It's up the fire escape for me," she said with resignation. She wouldn't risk being taken for a hobo and kicked out.

The muscles in her arms protested as she hauled herself up the metal ladder she'd mustered enough magick to bring down. She grit her teeth tighter with each rung feeling as if she'd lost a fight with a crazed street dweller. She counted herself lucky that she'd avoided any brushes with the police. The stolen wallets were still on her since she hadn't dared to dump them were they could be discovered. If she was a criminal, amnesia or not, she wasn't going back to prison.

Not that she missed the maniac but it was starting to concern her that he wasn't around and what sort of mood he'd be in when he finally showed up. Madison very suddenly felt very much the beaten housewife for a moment. The moment passed and she laughed brokenly to herself. At least a battered woman could flee the tormentor, she could not. Silently, lest he be listening from behind one of the locked door, she reminded herself that it was a matter of time. She'd be free of him soon enough and then she would worry about figuring out her identity. At least, she hadn't tried going to the police when she first came to. For all she knew, she was on a wanted list somewhere.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: It's finally here! Forgive me for the LONG delay! Enjoy!_

Klarion hated waiting almost as much as he hated tombs. It was the same sort of monotony. To his great frustration, the magician girl wouldn't let the damned cylinder out of her sight. She took it with her everywhere and she was never alone long enough to take it by force. Even when she slept, her hand curled tightly around it and she slept lightly. As much as he would have loved to play with the justice brats, he didn't want to bring attention to what it was that he wanted.

Zatanna for her part, was completely oblivious to Klarion's lingering presence. This was partly due to the fact that she was obsessed with the object to the point where she was starting to miss meals. She was starting to understand why her father had never brought her along when he set off to confiscated dangerous magickal artifacts. Even though she knew that the object was affecting her aura, she couldn't bring herself to think about throwing the thing down a long-lost mine shaft. Even worse, she found herself going through great pains to avoid going anywhere near Nabu.

Meghan was looking at her oddly again. Her hand clenched tighter around the tube she had concealed inside the hoodie she didn't remember owning. She watched the other girl's brow furrow in concentration before the expression melted into a concerned frown. At that point, the magician was certain that the thing was doing something to prevent the martian from reading her thoughts. If she hadn't been so desperate for someone to realize that she was in over her head, she might have been irritated at the attempted invasion of her privacy. As it was, she was quietly begging whatever power might be listening that Meghan managed to push past whatever sorcery the object had managed. Her pleas went unanswered.

From the subtle shift of Robin's face muscles to the blatant stare of Wally, each of her team members began to cast wary if not suspicious glances her way. She wanted to scream. She wanted to write "HELP ME" in her own blood on their bedroom doors. It felt like tears should stream down her face but her eyes remained dry. She felt a passenger to the growing power of the rod in her hands. She should have know better. Her father was right. She wasn't ready.

Her salvation came at the hands of an unexpected and unwelcome source. When she saw him lurking in a darkened corner, her power rose on instinct. A second later, it fizzled away as her surprise at being able to push past the object's block broke her concentration. He sauntered over to her. She tried to step back but her legs would not move. The cylinder did not want her to move and so she did not.

A cold hand closed over her own on the object. Her skin crawled from the touch and the way he was standing entirely too close, too intimate. Her eyes caught his and she couldn't look away. He smirked, deeply amused by something she didn't understand. He moved closer, cheek not quite brushing hers.

"Babies should stick with baby magick, don't you think?" he whispered close to her ear before he tugged the cylinder out of her hand and took a step back into a portal of dark red light.

For a while, she just stood there, shaking. She wasn't quite sure whether she was reacting to her sudden freedom, the ordeal, or its source but she was glad that her body was doing something natural again. Mostly, she felt relief. She would have hugged the witch boy if he hadn't left so quickly, so relieved she was. In that moment, she didn't care who he was or what he'd done.

She brought a shaking hand up to her chest to steady herself. Her heart drummed beneath her fingers and the shaking began to subside. It was then that she noticed that her face was streaked with tears. She laughed. It was nice to be doing natural human things again.

Elsewhere, in the cavernous halls of the way between worlds, Klarion was not paying as much attention as he should have been. Fortunately, Teekl was there to keep him from wandering the labyrinthine passages of dark oxblood stone for all eternity or slipping through a crack into some unknown frontier. The feline led his master to the point he knew would let out where they were going back on Earth.

Normally, Klarion would have moved dizzyingly quickly through them so that the action seemed more like falling from one point on Earth to another but he had a puzzle to solve. The endless halls were the perfect place to focus on such a problem. Made by ancient volatile magick, they were long abandoned by its makers as unreliable. It was hardly a problem for a being composed of the same energy.

Although the wards that protected the device were composed of a shell of chaos, the magicks that made up the device itself were intricate. He was unaffected by the shell of chaos but the composition was giving him trouble. He had to admire the genius of the man that constructed it. Only someone that walked the line between order and chaos could open it without much trouble. Even then, the person would have to possess the self control not to fall prey to the chaos, the intellect to work out the puzzle, and the perseverance required to solve it. Although he was at a disadvantage by being a creature of chaos, time was no object even with the constraint of Madison's lifespan. Her short life also served as a motivator to offset his temperamental nature. His greatest challenge lay in keeping the thing safe. Surely, someone would eventually notice his fascination. He had plenty of enemies that would tear the very fabric of reality to see him come to harm. He wasn't going to make it easy for them to do so.

With a squeeze, he cocooned the object in his own energy and forced it into himself. If anyone wanted to get at it, they'd have to find a way to tear it out first. The matter settled for the time being, and frustrated by his lack of progress, he had no further reason to delay. With a defeated sigh, he gathered his Teekl and set off. The halls slipped by beneath his feet easily and he found himself at his desired exit point.

He landed on a crouch. Madison, who was standing at the kitchen doorway with a cup of noodles, thought that he seemed as much feline as his familiar in that moment. She slurped her noodles and he looked up sharply at the sound. She swallowed nervously as his eyes focused on her. Her heart sped when he moved but began to slow when she realized he was merely getting up.

From where he stood, his eyes met hers and she nearly gasped at the emotion she found there. For the first time she saw that like herself, he had no ground beneath his feet. They were both caught up and carried in a wave of chaos. Her eyes widened with understanding. With that, she realized that she couldn't hate him for what he was. At least, she couldn't while she was caught up in the same outside power that she was. If he'd come to the same understanding as she had, it didn't show on his face.

He didn't understand the growing kinship between them. It frightened him that he was becoming attached to something that would shine brilliantly for a second before snuffing out. He was terrified that he'd continue the rest of his existence with the after-image of her burned into his being. There was a reason that the only thing he cared for was Teekl. The pressure to find what the bond was and dissolve it increased the longer he looked at her.

When his eyes hardened and the moment passed, she broke eye contact. She shifted so that her arms were between her body and him. She picked at her noodles but didn't lift them to her mouth again until he'd turned away from her. He sprawled on the couch and she watched him as she brought a bite to her mouth. The silence was only broken by the slurp of her noodles and the distant sounds of the city waking to the night. She left him there in lieu of leaning out of the kitchen window, staring out at the distant silhouette of the skyline.

As the stars began to twinkle into being on the horizon, she wondered if they might come down and whisper to her of who she was. If only they'd come down and anchor her to the world again so that she wouldn't be swept away in the madness that her companion was. Could she distill their radiance into the elixir of knowledge? Yet, they remained distant things long dead before she ever beheld them.

Long after night had fallen fully, she leant against the window frame and counted the few stars that could outshine the city lights. She felt like she could almost reach that part of herself that hummed with the life of the city. She itched once more to chase the glittering skyline and the music that came alive alongside the nightlife. This time, she resisted. No matter what that little patch of wicked inside her said, she was not the scariest thing to go bump in the night. Never was it more clear to her, from what she could remember, that she wasn't where she was meant to be.

She knew sleep would not come. With one last longing look at the stars above, she dropped her noodle cup outside and closed the window. The kitchen grew quiet as the sounds of urban life were shut out. She stood there for a long moment, just breathing and feeling her heart beating. Then, she made her way back to the living room to face her own familiar devil.

Elsewhere, in a muddy clearing that reeked of stagnant water, a man in glossy boots perched on a wooden plank barely holding itself atop the mud. He gazed intently at the blade buried in the soft earth a few feet away from him. Though his eyes were fixed upon it, he moved no closer and gripped the collar of the dog besides him. Voices came through the rustle of static from his radio. He was relieved to catch enough of the conversation to realize that the other detectives and the CSI were approaching the scene. He couldn't see the blade, as covered in dirt as it was but he had the awful suspicion that they would find the missing girl's blood on it. He wondered, gravely, if it wasn't stuck into her chest, protruding from a shallow burial.

There was not much he could do at the scene except watch as the cameras flashed late into the night and turn the puzzle over in his mind. His expression was troubled by the inconsistencies of the case. He let out a long sigh, and moved to get up. Before he could, the blonde woman working the scene pulled the cold metal from the ground in one swift stroke by its cloth hilt. Though the blade was covered in crumbled hummus and long streaks of clayish mud, there was no telling trails of old blood.

"Perhaps the rain washed them away," he whispered to the chilly air as he rose with the creak of aging joints and began his tiresome trek back to the only road through the massive park. He hoped, that some might be preserved beneath the mud streaks or that they would find traces in the ground. If there was a body, the knife had come away to smoothly to have been left dug into the chest.

A long ways away, Madison nearly fell to the ground struck with a sudden sense of weightlessness. She braced against the wall, waiting for the sensation to pass but it refused so long that she slid to the floor, shut her eyes with force, and fell into a restless slumber.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: I've decided to start posting chapters to all websites at the same time. Please R&R! I love the opportunity to read feedback on my writing._

There was darkness. She was in the darkness and of the darkness. The darkness was both other and self. Something turned in her mind, weakly trying to remind her that there was something very odd about that. The thought was smothered by the darkness. She found that she didn't mind that so much. Her mind reasoned that she was floating, had to be, for there was no ground beneath her feet.

"There are no feet," she heard her own voice say thought she hadn't felt her lips move, "What lips?"

With those last words, she came to stark awareness. There was nothing. She was nothing. Yet, her mind existed. Just as she began to consider that she might be dead, an antiseptic smell mixed with the clinging scent of mildew drifted into the darkness. In the space of a thought, the darkness was swept away by a blinding white. Blurry figures and distorted voices filled her regained senses. Everything began to shake. The figures continued to move and talk as if they weren't in the middle of an earthquake.

Something wrapped around her arm, almost painfully. She blinked and when her vision cleared she found herself in a room she didn't recognize. Tears stung her eyes as fear wriggled in her chest. The pressure on her wrist let up reminding her that she wasn't alone. Her head turned on instinct, and her eyes were caught in the dark web of a familiar pair. Warm relief diffused through her body, her chest expanded as it drew in air again, electricity danced on her spine, and then it became too overwhelming; her eyes fluttered closed. She was drifting away again, her body becoming a distant thing.

Klarion shook her, his nails morphing into black claws that dug into her skin as he did. The tight, tugging sensation inside his chest was increasing in intensity and he knew that it would not be long before it became a painful biting thing that he could not cast out. His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed as he came to a decision but his hands had moved ahead of his thoughts to hold open her mouth. He paused with a pout, suddenly filled with the sense of standing at the edge of the abyss, but it morphed into a smirk as he convinced himself that there was no magickal mess he couldn't untangle if it so pleased him. The thought of the mess he was already in, with no seeming way out that he could find, temporarily forgotten in a moment of arrogance fed by the magick he could not recall summoning.

He leaned over her as the threads of that most-ancient magick, which even he had the sense not to summon, slithered then darted after her. His mouth hovered over hers and opened in a sigh. A storm of dark red tumbled from his lips, alive with slithering veins of black twining around flickering red streaks of lightning.

Her eyes opened sightlessly and her chest expanded, catching the cloud with her indrawn breath. Instinctively, she attempted to rise. Her eyes focused but her mind was sluggish to make sense of the images. Her heart began to pound against her chest and a beat later her mind caught up. She tried to back away but a frigid hand at the base of her skull held her immobile. Their mingled breath made her feel weightless save for the anchoring staccato of her heart. Then, the hand was gone. It took her a moment longer to realize he was no longer in the room.

The world was stable. Nothing shook or shuddered. The light remained steady. Her lungs drew in breath after breath. She felt her body finally relax. Whatever happened was over. Still, it felt as if there was a door in the back of her head left wide open even if there was nothing pulling her out. Sleep began to creep on her and she tried to fight it. In the end, her will was too drained by her ordeal to remain conscious and she drifted off into an easy slumber unplagued by nightmares. An orange shape slinked in noiselessly and settled itself at the foot of the bed before it too closed its eyes.

Outside, the rhythms of the city carried on, seemingly unaffected by the forces that were called there. Yet, in the heavens above new stars ignited hidden in the vast ocean of the galaxy and added their sway to the cosmic dance of destiny. Amongst the glistening city lights, however, the change went unnoticed and the warning unheeded. Certainly, in a dimly lit windowless room, it went unperceived by a pale figured bowed over a tome that should have been falling to pieces.

The faded writing began to quiver and morph on the page. Zatanna could barely summon the energy to force it still. She didn't know from what dark depth of her soul she dredged it up from but it felt like no more power could be squeezed out. She'd thought the same thing the night before and the night before that one but still she somehow managed to find it in parts of herself she wasn't aware of. Holding the book open with one hand, she plucked her pen up, pressed the tip to her open spiral notebook, and continued to transcribe the runes. It had taken her many sleepless nights to realize that she could not stay tuned in to the proper script in the book and try to make sense of it at the same time. Her solution was a simple one, transcribe what she needed and decipher it later.

"You would think that a wizard that could fit his library into one tome would have the skills to include a translator," she huffed as she lost the runes. She knew without trying that she couldn't make them shimmer back onto the page even for a few short seconds.

Her hand ached, she noted when she ran it through her hair. She turned her head instinctively to her bead, half expecting to see the window in her old room on the far wall. A tear slid down her eye without her notice until it pooled at the edge of her lips. She tasted salt and quickly blinked away the moist droplets in her eyes before they gathered into a flood. The book slammed shut on the desk though she could not say whether it was a mechanism it had for defense or whether she'd been the one to do it.

The light in the room was too bright for sleeping. Still, she couldn't bring herself to turn it off. The turn her abilities had taken were frightening and somehow it seemed that the light was the only thing keeping the shadows in her room from coming to life. She'd no reason to believe they would, none at all but she'd been plagued by unreasonable fears since her incident with the strange cylinder. Thinking it'd damaged her, she'd poured through her father's collection of books. Her search ended in the harvest of bitter fruit. There was nothing to indicate that there was any lasting damage to the fabric of her power. She rolled onto her side and studied the concrete wall. Her eyes closed and she fell into a deep sleep.

A familiar dreadful sound slipped into the final moments of her dream. Zatanna came awake with a glare. It was a weekend and she'd forgotten to turn off the alarm. Knowing she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, she pulled the warm covers off. The chill air prickled her skin and teased bumps into it. It wasn't until she was standing before her alarm that she realized that she hadn't heard it since getting out of bed. She pressed hard down on the button anyways, frowning as she did so.

She sat once more upon her desk and flipped open the tome to where she knew without knowing she had left off. She whispered the spell to reveal the words but there was hardly a quiver of power in response to her words. She tried again louder but still the words would not appear. Wary now, she tried a third time, more forcibly than she had in her previous two. The pages changed color, as if they were suddenly moist before they faded back to their aged pale brown. Finally, she stood and yelled the incantation and the words appeared.

Relieved, she sat down and tried to find her place to continue her work. If the spell had not taken so much life out of her, she would have screamed. The runes were completely unfamiliar. She flipped back a page and studied it. It was not the same as the one she had read before, the pattern of the runes was different too. With care, she pulled the book closed and stroked its cover. Her anger was gone and she couldn't call it back anymore than she could cast even the simplest of spells right then. She leant back against her chair and decided that she could afford to take the day off.

Her mood plummeted when she came upon the kitchen and found the entire group there. They had been speaking in hushed voices but grew quiet once they realized she was in the room. Though they acted like they were doing nothing but having breakfast, she could tell by the lack of acknowledgement and the tiny twitches of face muscles that the conversation was still going on at a psychic level. She didn't want to hold back the glare meant for Meghan but she did. She understood their suspicions but that was no reason for them to be rude about it. She didn't see the Martian girl's worried look follow her out of the room. She'd get her breakfast elsewhere.

The over-sweet pancakes she'd gotten at the fast food joint reminded her of her father. He would always give her a disapproving look when he found out that she'd indulged in the stuff. It was never that he'd found it particularly offensive but Zatanna's mother had never liked her eating fast food. She didn't remember her mother so it was difficult to feel guilty about doing it. If anything made her feel guilty, it was remembering her father's face. She wondered if he saw her from somewhere inside Dr. Fate. She stabbed her pancake stack with her spork and tore at it violently with her teeth.

She was in the middle of a particular vicious bite when she thought she imagined a familiar orange feline darting into the wide alley between two buildings across the street from her. Her breakfast was left abandoned at the table as she rushed off after it. It occurred to her, briefly, that it might not be his cat but she reasoned that there couldn't be that many felines with those markings roaming around the city. She turned into the alley in time to catch the feline jumping over a chain link fence. She dashed after it murmuring the words to make her as agile as the cat. It worked, and she should have been relieved but she was entirely too focused on the cat to remember why.

The chase brought her to an unfamiliar path somewhere in the park. She should have found that odd too, being a frequent visitor but she didn't mind it and hurried on towards where she presumed the cat to have gone. The air grew moist and the canopy thickened overhead until only a few misty beams of light illumined the path before her. Unable to easily see the ground she walked on, she slowed down and let her eyes adjust. She stopped, uneasily, as she began to notice that the ground showed no sign of ever holding the gravel or sand that the park trails always had. Had she veered of somewhere? She looked around for a flicker of orange fur. There was nothing save the sound of birds chirping in the trees above.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the city proper, Teekl decided the room was too cold and crawled beneath the covers. Madison awoke to the movement and sleepily decided the cat had the right idea as she sunk beneath the covers as well.


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: An entire month off of school! Glad to be able to write regularly again. _

Madison was sure she'd been dreaming of home, wherever that was. When she'd come awake, she'd had an overwhelming sense that the world she was in had been put together wrong. The feeling had faded as she'd come fully awake but the memory of it remained. In a way, she didn't want to remember the night before but it came anyways. Instead of the emotional turmoil she expected, she experienced an eerie sense of calm. It was almost as if she hadn't actually experienced the things she remembered. She was certain that she had but she felt no connection to it. She was surprised to find that she wasn't at all bothered by the distance she felt towards the events of the night before. She blinked and yawned. She was glad to be alone, it meant that no one was around to watch her stare off into space. Her shoulders stiffened. Where had that come from? She forced them to relax.

The dark brown walls of the room were unfamiliar and the sheets she was under were too smooth to be her own. She brushed her hand over the thin layer of dust over the comforter. Her mind stretched to make sense of the information. Her first thought was that she had been asleep for a very long time but she shook it away. On some level, she knew that wasn't the case. The air in the room smelled as if it had sat undisturbed for a while. It was uncomfortable and so she hurried out of bed and out.

She found herself back in a hallway that had grown to be familiar. Light filtered into the hallway from the bedroom she had come to call her own, as the door had been left ajar. Curious as she didn't remember leaving it like that, she pushed the door further open. The room itself was as she remembered leaving it. She closed her eyes and inhaled. It was relieving to do so in a room that was allowed to air out. With that thought in mind, she returned to the hallway and opened the door to the room that she'd woken in. An orange figure mewled at her in a decidedly miff tone as the door came open before it darted out of the room.

Out of habit, she made her way to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and retrieved the milk. She had filled a bowl with cereal and was halfway through pouring milk into it when she stopped mid-stream at the realization that she wasn't at all hungry. She considered the serial. It would be too soggy to eat later if she put it in the fridge. She finished pouring and put down the carton. She sat and ate her cereal without much thought to what she was eating. When she'd chewed the last of it, she came back to herself and twisted her lips back to bear her teeth. The stuff tasted awful. How did she ever stomach it? She tasted the milk. It was fine. The cereal box went in the trashcan.

Feeling oddly restless, she bypassed the television and headed for the door, deciding to leave like a normal person. She nearly ran into before she noticed the aged metal key suspended mid-air in front of the door. She plucked it from the air and studied it. The metal was tarnished but held no rust. She sensed that it was much older than she was. Curious, she opened the door and slipped the key into the lock. It slipped in with ease and turned the lock without trouble. She slid it out of the lock and into her back pocket. She stepped out and with a flick of her wrist the door closed and locked behind her.

The hallway was filled with the sound of footsteps; the noise was so loud she held her head. A moment passed, then another, before she realized the sounds were not going away and that they weren't sounds at all. She suppressed the urge to cover her ears, knowing it wouldn't do any good.

"I'm going to have a migraine if this doesn't let up soon," she said to herself as she walked towards the stairwell.

The rest of the building was worse to the point that she stood in the lobby for a long moment in serious consideration as to whether or not she wanted to go out into the city in the state she was in. She knew the receptionist was staring at her worriedly without looking in the woman's direction. It was when she started to sense that the woman was about to say something, perhaps an inquiry as to her wellbeing, that she forced herself to walk to the door with enough force in her steps to silence the woman. Every word they exchanged would mean longer time spent in lobby's buzz of phantom sounds and the sounds were beginning to sound like snippets of conversation.

Being in the city made her feel better. There was so much noise that it formed silence. That is, there was so much of it jumbled together that her brain started treating it like static. Yet, it was still processing the static and she knew that a headache was still going to creep up on her. Her mind caught a thread of something sweet, something old, something that whispered to her of home. Without a second thought, she focused on it and began to follow it along its winding path through the city.

Certain that she had a good grasp of the general direction she wanted to go, she sat down at a sheltered bus stop and waited for the bus. While she waited, she watched the cars go by, drivers still aching for another hour of sleep despite the sun being halfway to its zenith. She saw the bus turn onto the street and stood up so that the driver knew to stop. The bus was still half a block away when a dark haired teenager ran past her, nearly knocking her over, and darted into the space between two buildings. She stared after the girl, noting that her footsteps were soundless, but the bus doors opened with a whoosh in front of her and she made a split second decision to board the bus and consider the girl later.

The city scrolled by on the other side of the bus windows and she watched it taking it all in, that city that was and wasn't hers. In a way, it moved her, the people that strove and struggled to build their lives, their community, and their city. It stirred to life the seeds of kinship within her. She may not have known those people but she understood that on some level she was like them. The bus entered a neighborhood of tall buildings, street-level shops, and apartments above. She pushed the button to signal the driver that she wanted off on the next stop and waited for the bus to come to it.

Cooking meats filled the air with delicious scents as she walked past small restaurants that she could tell, even while unable to name the chains that operated in the city, were not part of any franchise. She smiled, enjoying the experience. She could almost taste the meat falling to pieces in her mouth.

"When I find what I'm looking for," she promised, "I'm coming straight back for that beef."

The shop she found was dimly lit and she might have missed it if she hadn't been looking for it. She pressed against the glass, peering inside the shop. She could see jars of herbs and even from where she stood on the sidewalk she could feel the murmuring tongues of magick books on a shelf in the back. If she focused, she could almost see them on that hidden shelf living out their secret lives, whispering to each other, ranting, and lecturing each other. Madison found herself grinning at their antics.

"I think I liked books. I think I had some before," she whispered against the glass.

A figure moved on the inside, behind the counter, and it took her a moment to realize that she was being waved in. Having already intended to, she moved to the doorway and went inside. The door brushed against a wind-chime as she entered and its sweet sounds filled the shop even after she pulled the door closed behind her.

"I'm sorry about the lighting," the woman said," The electricity doesn't sit well with us here and the Fire Marshall tells me it's dangerous to burn candles in a building like this. I suppose he'd know, don't you?"

"It's fine," Madison's grin had faded but a smile came to her lips, "I only thought you might be closed."

"Have a look around," the woman's face folded into her laugh lines," and let me know if you find anything you like.

Her hand brushed against the glass case that served for a counter as she turned, taking the woman up on her offer. Well-worn wooden boards creaked beneath her feet as she wandered down the cozy aisles of goods. There were small curious gems in cushioned boxes without lids and some seemed to glimmer when she turned her head only to grow dull when she looked at them properly.

She came to a shelf with a dozen or so books of various bindings. A small one with a cover of dark matte leather caught her eye. She traced the raised swirling designs with the tips of her fingers and ran the edges of her nails along the grooves. With a tenderness that surprised her, she picked it up. It was a snug fit in her hand and she found its weight comforting. She held it against her chest as she continued to browse.

It was only after her eyes had slipped past several shelves without settling on anything that she realized that she was looking for something. When her eyes fell on the glass case that served for a counter she realized what it was that she was missing. There, sitting in a small faux-velvet lined box behind the glass, were five finely crafted pens. She felt drawn to the dark grey pen in the center of them. Its mother of pear finish sang to her. Her admiration was interrupted by the back of the case sliding open. A delicate pair of hands lifted the tray from the case and placed it on the surface that served as a counter.

"Which one would you like?" the woman's voice filled the room with warmth.

The woman's fingers were already resting lightly close to the middle pen. It looked so natural that Madison didn't notice it. She slowly caressed the pen, lost in thought. The woman smiled knowingly at the young woman engrossed with the pen before moving to the antique cash register and ringing up the items.

"That'll be $75. Handcrafted goods of this quality are hard to come by," she said.

Madison nodded and pulled a hundred she had left from her bout of thievery, handing it to the woman. The woman lifted a thin eyebrow but said nothing as she counted her change and put the items in a thin paper bag. Madison took the change and bag with a smile and headed out the door. The wind-chime sung again as she stepped outside.

"Make sure to recycle that bag," the old woman called after her.

The wind made her hair cling to her face and she pushed it out of the way with her hand as she turned her head back towards the shop keeper. She smiled, then waved, only to have the wind cover her face with her hair again. The woman in the shop gave a hearty laugh and waved the younger away. Madison found the woman's laugh contagious and allowed herself a giggle as she walked back the way she came. The bus stop was across the street and the opposite way but she decided she was the sort of person that kept the promises she made to herself. The wind settled into a breeze and carried those delicious scents back to her. When the succulent shredded beef touched her mouth, she had entirely forgotten why she'd gone to that part of town.


End file.
